of my way of gift giving etiquette and more...

i have just send megat to his classmate-cum-best friend nazmi's place. they invited him for iftar. its kinda first time for megat too to receive such an invite. he was sooooo damn excited since few days ago i tell you. even this morning when i was in parit buntar, megat kept calling and sms-ing me to discuss about it i.e. when to send him there, what suitable clothes to wear blah³...

5.30 PM SHARP nazmi already called megat of why he was not there yet ahh... kids! now megat was so worried.

alright, for me its ok to be about 5 minutes late or so. clocks are usually set between 5 minutes slow and 5 minutes fast, so arriving 5 minutes late should get you there "fashionably late!" being early to someone's house is rude (unless you're going out immediately after your arrival-then be there right on time). some people wait until the last minute to finish preparations for guests. giving your host(ess) that extra few minutes is usually appreciated. being more than 5 minutes late is rude. food may get cold, time with other guests may be interrupted, and/or the host(ess) may worry you're not coming or got lost.

but for megat's case, i guess its terribly ok cuz he was there for iftar. and his friend and his brother wanted him to be there early so that they could play together first. i opt to drop-by the local supermarket to get some chocolates for nazmi's family. thanks to grandma, luckily she reminded us about bringing some sweet gift.

since i was kinda busy, so no cupcakes this time like how i used to do! i.e. i baked some last week to bring them to kl. the most importantly, for redmummy and family who was terribly down since her son was a confirmed h1n1 victim. i made a quick visit at her place as soon as i reached kl that day. i would like to take this opportunity to thank ayu and rose for helping me! anyhow even if i won't make it to kl, i will still make an arrangement for my cupcakes to be delivered to redmummy as a gesture of thoughtfulness from me.

this pic is courtesy of redmummy

besides redmummy, i also made some extras for my cousin yaya because she accompanied me during the iftar session with nuffnang. plus some others... (you know who you are) including a good school friend of mine whom we didn't meet for obviously 20 years! alright alright... i'll type a separate blog post for this one soon cuz she's so special to me ;)

for me, gifts are part and parcel of my culture and are not only for birthdays and special occasions. gifts may be given to someone who has provided a favour, to someone returning from a trip overseas, or simply out of want. the cost of the gift is not nearly as important as what it represents — friendship.

so for nazmi's family, we just grabbed a cadbury classic collection 1930's - 1960's pack. i was not satisfied yet that time because no ribbon meh... so we made an another stop to buy a ribbon to be stick to the box *phew* by that time its already almost 6pm. you could see megat's sour face lol... but it was just for a while though...

and on the way to nazmi's place, i reminded megat of the do's and dont's while he's there:

• to greet all the members of the family especially the elders first by shake and kiss their hands; it is best to see if a hand is extended or not first.


• wait to be told of where to sit.


• table manners are continental.


• you will be expected to try all foods at the table.


• expect to be urged to take second or even third helpings. it is best to eat less on your first helping so that a second helping is possible. this shows your host you are enjoying the food and are being taken care of.

of my blog purpose...

the main purpose of this blog when it first started was just as an online personal diary, nothing more than that. basically i wrote about whatever i feel like to write i.e. my experiences in life, my two lovely kids, my reviews on f&b places that we went, movies and many more... in other words, its a place for me to rant and released my stress and relaxed through writing. but one thing that i always bear in mind is NOT to touch on politics! full stop.

along the way i came across nuffnang at my first bloggers meet in penang. i guess that's how i started to share and try make money while blogging. then i have been invited to join socialspark; and the rest was history. believe it or not, i got more opportunities and of course incomes with socialspark than nuffnang. i know the answers to that, but i leave it for you to figure it out yourself hehee... nonetheless i really enjoyed my time at blogger events organized by nuffnang.

you can learn more about blogging here or just type anything you wanna know in the 'search' box on top left hand corner of this blog. better still email me like some of you people did. we became online friends though.

like Dragon Blogger, we met in socialspark (isn't it kewl people, by blogging, i met bloggers from all over the world)! here's what he gotta say about this topic:

One of the biggest questions I get asked by new comers to SocialSpark is how do I start making money with blogging. This is a fair question and is something I am always trying to learn the answer to myself. Before you should think about monetizing your blog however, you need to define your blog purpose.

Your purpose is your entire reason for your blogs existence, your purpose needs to be developed with your potential readers and audience in mind. Your purpose helps keep you focused on what your blog is about and keeps you doing it. read more here.

to add up to this, i am so glad that i went to the 'blogging and law' conference some time ago. there and then i am very much aware of the do's and dont's about blogging and such. thus you won't see other people's pics in my blog unless otherwise stated. important: gives credit where credit is due!

and as you could see now people, my blog is not really about making money. i still write anything and whatever came across me. the blog ads opportunities are just bonus!

so what about you people. care to share some of your blog purposes with me?


if you like this blog post, then you may be interested to read these too:

• blogging without a purpose


• my blog's purpose


• the art of blogging: revisiting site focus — i lurve the nice and simple layout of the blog, especially the pink electric (fender?) guitar. wonder whether it represented the blog owner ;)


• my blog purpose

favicons are fun

i first been introduced to favicon by maro^gal via nuffnang's innit. then i was like-- "holy sh*t... that's soooooooo damnnnnn simple!". before that i was wondering like hell of how ler people do it on their site. and when i go through her tutorial, i immediately placed mine on my blogs since then. it was really easy i tell you.

if you find this thingy new to you, well its a small image that is generally used to reflect the identity of a web site. you can find it in the address bar, in your browser's tabs, in the list of bookmarks or in some feed readers. it's normally in a 16x16 pixels image, a standard size for favicons. worry no more, cuz favicon.cc can help you create or download favicon.ico icons with their cool tools ;)

i definitely agreed with Dragon Blogger. when we click on our bookmarks, all we need to see is the favicon to know what we want to click on, by not even have to read the bookmark title. its very helpful, right? besides the fun-ness of using it.

here's some of the favicons that i like, which is also the one that i most browse daily-- from top to bottom, in no particular order: last.fm, scrabulous, all recipes, Facebook, Nuffnang, Mail.com, Google, SocialSpark and CIMBClicks.

and most importantly... here's my cute favicon. eh... cute ke? hehee... its the same pic that i use for my profile pic ;)

kuE's favourite pics

they say a picture is worth a thousand words. i have been a keen photographer since i had my first digicam as my own birthday pressie last year. hmm... so what am i going to get myself this year? let me see... anyhow let's get back to our main topic here i.e. kuE's favourite pics-- i think that many people look at how and why a picture was taken. i try to take photos naturally, as i believe people are at their best when they are not aware they are being photographed. as for anything else it is about lighting and position for me. its so true of what some pros i know were saying about anything goes. thank you so much for your help. you know who you are.

i thought i would make a post with my favourite picture i have taken so far and one of the one that i like, taken by others.

so as you could see, this pic of a group of chinese secondary school dancers has been my favourite ever since i own my oly for almost a year now. can't you see of how natural the red handkerchiefs look especially after they have been thrown up away by the dancers. i lurve it! this pic that has been taken during the last chap goh meh, can also be viewed here.



while the one that i like most so far, taken by others was this one by my sister. its a pic of part of me, taken at my god mom's (also my mother's elder sis) place in pj during hari raya haji about three years ago. fyi i was not aware about this until my sis load it in her flickr album. take note that i like this one not because it has been taken by my sister, but i just like the contrast of the objects featured in the pic i.e. my sarong, the white bricks, the stones/pebbles and the grass. what say you? on the other hand, she's really one of the great photographers i know on earth, whose also the founder of kl flickr. go here to view more of her pictures or here for her personal web site.

why not you visit this photograph site Pho-Tog-B-log, of wonderful pictures like this one! one of the pictures is so fantastic, it could be on a scenery postcard! go here to read a review she wrote about me ;)

now tell me people, what are your favourite pictures YOU have taken?

what type of pet do you own?

i have blog about my pet cat named 'pussy' before here and here. he has never been out of the house since i took him from our backyard, in order to safe him from the biawak (big lizard). the mother was from no where, always came to our house for food. sadly to say that i never see her no more.

from the two previous post about pussy, you could see of how fast he grows. he's already 1+ years old now. unfortunately i have to place him in his cage for the time being, as he's started to be "naughty". i had no time to bring him to the vet. only recently that i managed to go there to fix an appointment for him. well once he's been neutered, for sure he will be freely wondering around the house.

for me, people who own felines or dogs are truly wonderful people on earth. check out sugarykisses' little pomerianian, aren't he cute? even paris hilton offered a $5,000 reward four years ago for the return of her chihuahua tinkerbell, when she noticed the dog hadn't been tailing her for a week.

so how about you people... what type of pet do you own?