FurryMaisy

That is what my GP measured yesterday morning. He gave me antibiotics, 2 types of pills for the fever, and sent me home with 2 days MC.

Now the fever is slowly subsiding, to be replaced with lung-busting coughs.

I hate being sick.

I may not be a Jodi Picoult fan, but I find myself reading her books on my Nook whenever I’m bored and need written words to carry me away from realities of life. Each of her books deal with a specific social issue, and her words are quite a page turner, even if the only reason I plow through her books is to find out what lousy ending she gives to it.

The heart of this story is a custody battle for Faith White, a little girl who starts to see and talk to God after her parents divorced after her mom found out about the dad’s adultery. It talks about belief (in God and otherwise), betrayal, and a mother’s love for her child.

The mom, Mariah falls into depression after the divorce. The child Faith copes with the lack of attention with an invisible friend/guard who sounds a lot like God. Faith begins to spout verses from the bible and perform miracles. A well-known atheist televangelist, Ian Fletcher, roaming the country to debunk religious miracles and raise TV viewership, hears about Faith and travels to conquer his next ‘subject’. A heated encounter with Mariah’s mom leads her to a heart attack, and is declared dead at the hospital. Faith performs her first miracle by bringing her grandmother back from the dead with a kiss of life.

Such miracle-working feat attracted great interest from the general public, and also triggers a mass of religious believers and naysayers alike to camp out at Mariah’s home. Such public adulation of a religious miracle worker leads Ian Fletcher to embark on a plan to debunk little Faith’s ‘powers’ as nothing but a hoax, an attention grabbing stunt by the mom.Faith begins to perform miracle after miracle, while suffering signs of stigmata, and Ian’s faith is slowly tested, not to mention his attraction to Mariah.

Readers will slowly find out the hidden secrets of Ian Fletcher and his atheistic agenda, Mariah and her struggles with depression (and maybe mental illness), and the views of Colin White, the divorced husband wanting back the custody of Faith White.

The story ‘religiously’ (hah!) ends with a custody trial, as it is with all Jodi Picoult novels.

I found this book to be quite enjoyable to read, but it makes no attempts to explain the miracles that happen; they just happen, and people were quick to accept the miracles and not seek out scientific explanations for them. I don’t know, are people that quick to accept the unknown as miracles from God? Sounds too easy to me. The Mariah character also did not warm up to me, she seems a bit too detached and weak while dealing with her feelings. I don’t find myself rooting for her when the chips are down, so to speak. The ending is also left open, typical of her novels.

In all, a standard Jodi Picoult novel. Just ignore the holes in the plot and enjoy this book on a lazy, rainy afternoon.

In 2008, Seattle Supersonics, an NBA franchise with 41 years of history in the city of Seattle, ceased to exist, its franchise moved to Oklahoma City and was renamed Oklahoma City Thunder.

For the better part of the 2000s, I was not into NBA, having lost interest after the era of Jordan’s Chicago Bulls and Olajuwon’s Houston Rockets. The whole saga of the Sonics pass me by, until Linsanity caught my attention and I started watching NBA games once more.

Sonicsgate: Requiem for a Team is a 2009 movie that attempts to chronicle the franchise’s move to Oklahoma City. It rightly focuses on the corporate and political maneuverings by the parties involved. Past players, journalists, and fans were interviewed to give perspectives on the move.

The movie touched a little on the Sonic’s beginning, its lone NBA championship, the free-wheeling and free-scoring team of the 90s with Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp, until it was sold to Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks. Schultz tried to ask for public money to rebuild Key Arena, Sonic’s stadium, and putting up only minimal private financing. Seattle, which had already spent a lot of public money to help the Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Mariners, refused to help the Sonics this time round, citing public objections.

In this movie, I’ve begun to see why Commisioner David Stern is not a well-liked person. He reminds me of Bernie Ecclestone, the ’emperor’ of F1 racing. His posturing and veiled threats to help owners move the NBA franchise to another city really pissed me of.

Schultz, after failing to make any headway in the stadium rebuild effort, decided to sell the Sonics to a group of Oklahoma City businessmen led by Clayton Bennett, earning big bucks in the process. From the start, many quarters were already wary of the new owners’ intention to move the franchise to Oklahoma City. After letting the team decline on the basketball court, and failing to get public money (again!) to rebuild the stadium, they announced the move.

The movie tries to be objective, and manages to present each step of the saga clearly, pointing to Schultz as the catalyst for the decline, and Bennett as the liar who repeatedly denied any move when email correspondences with other owners showed otherwise. No histrionics or hyperbole from fans, just regret from journalist fans and analysts interviewed.

In the end, I really felt for the average Sonics fans, who has had an NBA team in their city for 41 years, but ultimately was disappointed by corporate sharks who took the team away from them.

You can watch the 2-hour movie online for free from the official website at sonicsgate.org. By the way, this movie was released online for free, as the makers wanted as many people to watch the movie as possible. A shorter, recut 1-hr version has been released on TV and DVDs in 2012 for primetime viewing.

I read a lot of news, from current affairs to entertainment to sports, in between work, when I’m writer’s block. I do this when my mind goes blank or stuck with a problem I can’t solve. Sometimes I just need to get away for a few minutes, and my mind clears a little so I can get back to work.

This is just a collection of interesting stuff that happened last week:

• In football, Piermario Morosini, a Udinese player on loan to Serie B side Livorno, collapsed during a game on Saturday with cardiac arrest. Unlike Fabrice Muamba, he did not survive, and was pronounced dead in the hospital an hour later.
  I read a little about his life, his parents died when he was young, and a disabled brother committed suicide shortly after. He was the sole financial and emotional support to another handicapped sister when tragedy struck. His death is a cruel end to the tragic life he has led thus far. On a kind note, Udinese announced they will provide lifelong financial aid to his sister through their medical charity ‘Udinese for Life’. A kind gesture from the club to the family of one of their players.
  I wonder, with the increase in speed and intensity of the game, will we hear more cases like this?
• New York Knicks really need Jeremy Lin back as soon as possible, after a 93-85 loss to Miami Heat in MSG. I watched the last few Knicks game where both Amar’e Stoudemire and Jeremy Lin were sidelined with injuries, and it looked like only Carmelo Anthony was doing the scoring. Yes, the Knicks had good defense, but the other players weren’t scoring enough. When the other team shut down Anthony like the 4th quarter in the Heat game, the points dried up. The Knicks really need other players like JR Smith, Shumpert, Fields, Davis and Novak to contribute points.
  

  Obligatory picture of JLin, just because I can.

• F1 is exciting again!! Really! Nico Rosberg has won his maiden F1 race in the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai. Again, I caught the race online, and boy, was I entertained. Apart from Rosberg, who pulled away in front for much of the race, cars in 2nd to 9th position were all within 2 secs apart of each other. Each straight held promises of overtaking action. Glad to see the 2 MacLarens outhustle Vettel for 2nd and 3rd. Vettel himself did well to finish 5th after starting at 11th place on the grid. It was sad though to see Raikkonen dropping from a high of 2nd all the way to 14th, after running into tyre trouble.
• Man Utd won their game against Aston Villa 4-0. Ashley Young fell too easily to the ground, IMO. Still, a win’s a win!

Ok, that’s all. Hmm, now I realize they’re all sports-related news. Oh well.

I recently knew of the existence of Nanoblock when I spotted Action City selling the Mini & Sights to See series. The size of the blocks – 4mm x 4mm – amazed me, and quickly bought one to try at home.

A bit of background on Nanoblock:

Nanoblock is a range of building block puzzles made by a company in Japan. Its website (in Japanese) is at http://www.diablock.co.jp/nanoblock/. The Mini series are mostly animals and musical instruments. Sights to See series showcase famous landmarks around the world like the Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, and more.

They also have a deluxe series for the serious hobbyists. We are talking about over 2000 pieces. So far they have the Neuschwanstein Castle Deluxe Edition
, Himeji Castle, and Yamato- The Imperial Japanese Navy Battleship.

Nanoblock is made by a Japanese company, so naturally, they have quite a number of Japan-themed puzzles, like temples and stuff.

Now on to the koala.

I bought a Mini Koala the other day whilst browsing in a toy store (don’t ask why), and worked on it 2 days later. They pack different size pieces separately, presumably so you don’t need to hunt the single square pieces in the midst of 3 – 4 square pieces. A full colour instructions is included, all you need to do it follow the steps shown and you will not go wrong.

The contents of the package

Closeup of the full-color instructions for mini koala

The smallest piece has a size of 4mm by 4mm, definitely not easy to hold for those with fat fingers. I have relatively chubby fingers, and had a little difficulty holding on to the 1-square piece while piecing the blocks together. But little by little the koala began to take shape, and by the end of the hour, I had finished the piece.

Mini Koala building in progress, and the results!

Don’t panic if you still have unused pieces sitting in the plastic bag. The Nanoblock people have helpfully packed extra pieces into each pack, in case you lose  a few to the hungry dog/cat/toddler, or you decide to get creative (i.e. don’t like to follow instructions) and build a slightly different koala.

The husband was a little surprised I finished it in an hour. He certainly thought it was a waste of $9.90. Hmmph!
But he did find a spot in the living room to display the mini koala, so I think he secretly liked it as well.

So there! Might get another one next month.

The Big Bang Theory is one of the very few sitcoms I have watched the past few years (the other being HIMYM). Caught one episode online the other day, and here’s a short recap:

Amy and Sheldon are going to attend Amy’s aunt’s 90th birthday over the weekend, but the guys have also planned a weekend Star Wars gaming marathon. Sheldon, bounded by the rules of their relationship agreement, can’t join in. Meanwhile, Howard tries out a new Whip app on his iPhone. *Whip*

After a failed attempt on Sheldon’s part to try purchasing a birthday gift at his usual haunts (think comic book shop and Radioshack), Sheldon contemplates trying to wiggle his way out of the weekend trip. He managed to avert the trip and annoyed Amy in the process.

We see a bit of Penny and Leonard discussing their ‘Beta Test’ relationship dynamics, I like their interaction here.

Star Wars marathon : Bernadette decides to join the game and Howard couldn’t dissuade her not to. *Whip*

Amy, back from the birthday party, seeked solace over at Penny’s place. They attempted to play beer games to help drown Amy’s sorrows. Great skills with the coin in the cup trick there, Amy!

After a while, Penny decided that Amy should confront Sheldon on his behavior, aka throw a hissy fit. Which she did, in the middle of the guys’ Star Wars Marathon. Which she did not excel at. But Sheldon apologised to her for his behavior, and tries to make up to her by giving her ‘Sheldon Coupons’.  Raj, seeing that the guys only weekend was slowly disappearing before his eyes, finally spoke up and expressed his dismay at this. The girls got his drift and decided to leave the guys alone for the weekend.

A very, very catchy autotuned song compiled from various Knicks interviews & stuff. Linsanity rules!

Reminds me of Kristen Bell’s sloth meltdown effort here.

And, congrats to the Knicks, when they mowed down Cavs from a 17-pt deficit to win 120-103.

Linsanity stat tracker:

19pt, 13 as, 5 rb

I realized I have not updated this blog for nearly a month, post-CNY blues?

Anyway, not much has happened since CNY, have not tried to cook any new dishes. Well, I did cook claypot-style chicken rice with a rice cooker, but being the lazy bum I am, I’ll put up a blog entry for that sometime in the future. Other than that, each day blends into another, punctuated with boring weekends of cooking and cleaning. Not a fantastically interesting life, I know.

Oh yeah, I realized my Amazon affiliate store at www.furrymaisy.com/nanoblock pulled in some earnings in February, a whopping US$9.77. Woo hoo! I never expected anyone to actually buy something from the site, but YEAH!! It’s my dream to one day buy the Neuschwanstein Castle Deluxe Edition Set, but it’s real big, and my tiny little house can’t spare any room for this. Maybe if I can get a few more extra bucks from this website, I might be able to afford a bigger house and go buy one.

The month of February also saw the beginning of Linsanity. If you have been in outer space, or just woken up from a month-long sleep, you might not know Jeremy Lin is. I will not repeat what has been said about his epic rise into the NBA, suffice to say, I will be keeping tabs on Knicks results, and watching Lin-related Youtube videos in the future. (Can’t believe what I’m saying, I hate the Knicks!). Linsanity merchandise is already available in Amazon. Am I falling back in love with the NBA once more?

I really like these 2 tee shirts, anyone wanna buy them for me?

Will be going to KL this coming weekend, so maybe something interesting might pop up.

Pepsi, Lays & Tropicana brought together entertainers endorsing their products to produce a short film / commercial for CNY 2012, with its theme of going home for reunion dinner.

Catch Louis Koo, Zhou Xun, Show Luo, Angela Chang, and veteral Chinese actor & director Zhang Guo Li in this short tale that aims to tug at your heartstrings and consume Pepsi, Lays and Tropicana while you’re at it.

I first visited the JPO in December, a day before the official launch in December 2011, you can read my post here.

Yesterday, we made a second visit to JPO as we heard that Braun Buffel has opened its doors, and the hubby’s wallet is starting to fray at the edges. Most items were at 20%-30%, some at 50%. I overheard the 70% off  wallets have all sold out.

They have started to charge for parking, RM 3 per entry. OK, I guess, as the average visitor spends at least 3 hours there. On the same note, when I reached at 4pm, there were at least 30 people queuing at the one working parking machine. Also, the machine only takes RM1 notes. A paper on the machine instructs visitors to change for RM1 notes at the Information Centre if you have none. By the way, you can pay for parking at the Information Centre.

Apart from Braun Buffel, the other shops that have opened its doors are Tommy Hilfiger and Raoul. Polo Ralph Lauren has yet to open. Coach and Burberry still attracts queues.

The crowds actually buying and not just browsing have reduced somewhat. Most people were there in their CNY togs just walking and ogling at stuff. I wonder how long JPO can sustain the buying crowds, as prices are not as cheap as expected, especially when compared to outlet prices in the US.

I’ll most probably make another trip there in 6 months’ time, just to check for new items in stock at Adidas and Nike.