Archive | 2011

Alcohol-Consumer-Rights Group Malaysia (Alcon) – The Offical Launch!

Alcohol-Consumer-Rights Group Malaysia (Alcon)

You know I love Alcohol – I also DO NOT love the ‘sin tax’ levied on booze by the government, it makes foreign beers/single malt whisky and other spirits really expensive here.

Alcon is basically a consumer rights group for alcohol consumers in Malaysia to reduce the high tax, the petition is here:

Reduce the HIGH TAX on alcohol in Malaysia

We the undersigned ask that the government reduce the unusually high duties and taxes levied on alcohol in Malaysia, as compared with the rest of the developing and developed world.

We strongly feel that responsible Malaysians have been subjected to EXTREMELY EXCESSIVE duties and taxes for alcohol. Malaysians are still low-income earners, but the prices we pay for alcohol are quite ridiculous.

In terms of income vs price, Malaysians probably pay the highest for alcohol in the WORLD. This is a very distressing and unsustainable situation.

The huge majority of drinkers do so as a form of recreation and a social activity. There are not alcoholics, and are responsible citizens. Many are professionals, businessmen and artists.

However, the cost of moderate drinking can cost up to 25% of a person’s monthly salary. In most countries, for the same volume of drinks, it would only be 5-10% of the monthly salary.

Alcohol consumers already contribute close to 10 billion ringgit (5.6 billion spent on beer alone in 2009), but our views as stakeholders have never been taken into consideration by the government. In addition, the government’s revenue from alcohol taxation are already in the billions each year.

It’s time that the government shows some concern about this situation.

Please do not look to us an easy source of government funds anymore.

Join the Facebook group here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/myalcon

Once you’ve joined the group, if you want to attend the launch the event page is here:

The official launch of Alcon

This event is only for Alcon members. Please click Attending ONLY IF YOU ARE 100% SURE you are attending, rain or shine, coz we have to cap it at abt 250 attendees max. Otherwise, you might not show up, and you’ll deny other members the chance to attend.

Please register if you are sure you can attend, the head-count is essential and it’s not an open door event.

In other related news, it’s also KL Cocktail Week! Check out the event here (includes details, itinerary etc):

KL COCKTAIL WEEK 2011

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Continue Reading · 5 Comments · Alcoholic Frolic, Serious Issues

ABSOLUT AKADEMI In KL, Malaysia With Matt Pomeroy

So a while back I was invited for a very interesting Alcohol related event by my homeboy Eric Lim, it was something to do with education – which is good because I have to admit I know very little about vodka and in this case it was an invite to ABSOLUT AKADEMI. The blurb was like this:

For one special evening only, the world-renowned ABSOLUT AKADEMI returns to KL for a comparative vodka tasting and appreciation session following its debut here nearly a year ago. To share the definitive ABSOLUT experience with you is mixing maestro Matthew Pomeroy, Brand Ambassador from The ABSOLUT Company in Sweden.

Of course I know about the brand ABSOLUT and I know a bit about it (it’s from Sweden, it has a bunch of flavours, their ads always look the same etc).

ABSOLUT Vodka

They had Matt Pomeroy over in KL, who is basically the global brand ambassador for Absolut (from what I understood). The second important point to note is that ALL the attractive blonde girls in Sweden belong to him – just so we are clear on that.

Here’s his official bio:

Matt has worked in the hospitality industry for 16 years. During this time Matt has opened and managed some of London’s most established bar and restaurant venues such as Le Pont De La Tour, Chez Kristof, Northbank, and the UK’s most important and iconic vodka bar, Baltic.

Matt has also been successful in various national and international cocktail competitions and he was a part of the UK ‘Class’ bar team of the year. He also opened the Time Out UK magazine’s best new restaurant of the year and has written articles on cocktails and spirits for iconic men’s magazines such as Esquire and GQ.

In 2008 Matt moved to Poland as Global Brand Ambassador for Wyborowa, Luksusowa and Siwucha. During this two year period Matt traveled the globe conducting educational sessions, vodka master-class seminars, and cocktail demonstrations while he continued to excel, develop and champion these iconic brands and the vodka category as a whole. New challenges beckoned in September 2010 and Matt moved to Sweden to start his new role as Global Brand Ambassador for ABSOLUT VODKA.

Matt Pomeroy

He’s an amusing chap – one nugget that he shared with us, is that when a bar-tender is shaking a cocktail shaker – their expression would be similar to their orgasm face…how true that is? Honestly I’m not really willing to find out.

Anyway, more about the class – I actually learn a lot about tasting Vodka and the intricacies – which I discovered was fairly similar to that of single malt whisky (nose, mouth-feel, after-taste and so on).

We were given 2 rows of glasses, one row was flavoured vodkas (all from ABSOLUT) and the other were plain vodkas from all different brands (SKYY, Russian Standard, Smirnoff etc)

Vodka Tasting

I also learn about the two schools of vodka, new school and old school. The new school of vodka generally comes from US/Canada and Western Europe with the old school vodka coming from Eastern Europe/Russia.

Then we got more into the tasting, tasting/appreciation for vodka must be done with neat vodka at room temperature (don’t smoke before hand). Some of the flavours or ‘tastes’ that can be used to describe vodka are as follows:

  • Neutral (predominant in the USA vodkas like SKYY, Grey Goose etc)
  • Grainy
  • Bready
  • Dried Fruit
  • Fruity
  • Buttery
  • Solvent (predominant in nasty vodkas like Smirnoff Red)
  • Rubber/Diesel

We also learnt about tasting with a nose peg on and how much difference smell makes (yes this is why we were in The Star looking like idiots).

Vodka Tasting

They made us eat an unknown substance whilst wearing the nose-pegs, which we all thought was brown sugar (mostly due to the texture) but actually it was cinnamon and this was super clear when we took the nose-pegs off.

There are other long lists of characteristics too for taste/mouthfeel (spicy, nutty, fruity, thin, dry, sweet etc) and finish (short, long, peppery, burn, silky, dry, bitter etc). The finish is basically the taste left in your mouth after you swallow, the neutral or modern vodkas tend to have a very short finish and the old world vodka (Stolichnaya/Russian Imperial etc) tend to have a longer finish.

It’s interesting how much vodka can vary, especially when everyone has the preconception that vodka is odourless and tasteless.

Anyway that was the part I was most interested in, we also learn more about ABSOLUT, Sweden, the marketing, the branding and so on.

The ABSOLUT Family

The first ABSOLUT (as we know it, in the current bottle) was launched in 1979 (a year after I was born) and their first flavour came out in 1986 and was ABSOLUT PEPPAR – great for making bloody mary’s.

After that was all over Matt showed us some cocktails that can be made with ABSOLUT, I have to say I really enjoyed the ABSOLUT Espresso Martini:

ABSOLUT Espresso Martini

Here’s the recipe:

  • 40ml of ABSOLUT VANILIA
  • 10ml Kahlua
  • 10ml Sugar syrup
  • 1 Espresso shot
  • Shake well & strain!

You can grab the full list of ABSOLUT Cocktails we were given here [PDF].

One thing I really respect about ABSOLUT is the whole process they have created and how strict they are compared to other brands (like Smirnoff for example). This means ABSOLUT is really consistent all over the World as every bottle is made in the same plant, with the same water and the same grains. Smirnoff makes their vodka all over the World, so if you buy bottles in a few different countries they will all taste different as they are made with different grains and different water in different environments.

And well that’s the end of that, I learned a lot and I was actually so impressed by how ABSOLUT control their distilling process that I went out a few days later and bought a bottle of original ABSOLUT from Tesco!

My only complaint would be that they should have fed us, then we could have drank MUCH MORE ABSOLUT! Other than that it was great.

More on ABSOLUT here:

Website: https://www.absolut.com/my
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/absolut.my
Twitter: @AbsolutAkademi

And some posts from others who were there:

And from the previous year:

Absolut Fun

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Continue Reading · 2 Comments · Other Spirits

You Are What You Tweet – Get Your Own Twitter Infographic From Visual.ly

Infographics are one of the super hipster in things in 2011, everyone is busting out mad infographics about everything. Today I found a cool tool which can generate a personalized/customized infographic based on your Twitter usage habits.

I have written about about Twitter a few times before (like How To Secure Yourself Online – Twitter, Facebook, Google (Gmail) & WordPress, Twitter Advertising – The Next Big Thing? & Why Twitter is SO Popular), and I’m a massive Twitter whore – so I thought I’d share my infographic here as I found it pretty interesting. On top of that Visual.ly is actually also a pretty neat start-up – and I like cool, good looking stuff like this and Turntable.fm.

Visual.ly helps you create beautiful visualizations in minutes and instantly apply the graphics genius of the world’s top information designers to your designs. Plug and play, then grab and go with our push-button approach to visualization creation.

And here’s my infographic, apparently I’m a foodie into music (which is pretty accurate actually).

@ShaolinTiger Twitter Infographic

If you want to generate your own you can do so here:

https://visual.ly/twitter

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Continue Reading · 3 Comments · Internet & Tech, Stupid Me Mes

Movie Review – Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon – BOOMTASTIC

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon (2011)

When a mysterious event from Earth’s past erupts into the present day it threatens to bring a war to Earth so big that the Transformers alone will not be able to save us.

It’s been a while since the first Transformers movie, way back in 2007 it made quite a splash. It was pretty much movie of the year, then came Transformers 2 – which was so bad…I didn’t even blog about it in my expansive Movies category – because it depressed me.

When the rumours started about Transformers 3 coming soon – I honestly wasn’t very excited, especially after Iron Man 2 last year – which was weak.

Anyway the next franchise reboot I’m looking forward to is Spiderman – it’s been a long time coming and I’m excited now after X-men: First Class was SO good.

Well back to the movie in question – Transformers 3, is it as good as the first one? No, not really. Is it better than the second one – yes infinitely so. Is Rosie Huntington-Whiteley hot? Goddamn right she is.

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Oh yah and I love the SLS too 😛

Was Shia LaBeouf annoying – yah mostly. Oh and for the ladies, McDreamy is in there playing a douchebag too (Patrick Dempsey). Was the action absolutely spectacular? YES IT WAS! You could actually see them fighting this time – they pulled the camera out and made it a little less frenetic.

The pacing was incredible though, altogether a very gripping film. Well filmed, well scored and the focus was on the robots – there was some good storyline development, character development and for once the plot followed the comic book.

The action tho…wow! Once it got going, it was really intense. Soundwave/Driller was EPICBALLS.

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon (2011)

I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the movie but the ending was HORRIFIC, really seriously? What was with the “Don’t let go” – is it Titanic all over again? That was cheesin’ man – really cheesin’ max.

They should have ended with Optimus Prime standing on the bridge with one arm like a total bad mofo having just slain Sentinel Prime and Megatron. It’s not doing too bad on IMDB right now with 6.9, I think it might push into 7.x territory at some point.

It’s also thankfully absent from the pee/poop jokes that littered the second movie.

For me, even with the ending, I still really enjoyed the movie and I give it a solid TRANSFORMING 8/10.

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Continue Reading · 7 Comments · Movies

Random Post #16 – Wordconf, Webcamp, Wheels & WTF?

Woah it’s been a while since I did a Random Post! Back in April in fact, missed out May and now it’s the last day of June! (I try to do one a month…). Anyway – here we are! Been super busy lately, hence the lack of any meaningful updates (not that this post is going to be meaningful…).

So let’s try and catch up on what I’ve been doing in May and June…as if anyone cares, but hell it’s my blog so I’m going to write about it anyway.

We went for the opening of a new restaurant in Puchong serving authentic Terengganu food, opened by the family of the gorgeous Cindy Tey and the food there is FANTASTIC. The place is called Mek T and you should go and check it out (I LOVE the Nasi Sedap Sokmo)! You can see Kim’s proper review here.

Mek-T Puchong

Around that time was Wordconf too, where I gave a talk about High Performance WordPress.

Wordconf 2011

Or course there was also the Deadmau5 Outdoor LED Concert Live At Sunway Lagoon, Malaysia – May 2011, which was banging.

Food wise we have a new obsession, this amazing Hakka Pork Chop in Klang – wow it’s GOOD.

Hakka Pork Chop

Gotta love Klang food, just had the bubur goreng there with steamed flower crab last weekend – OMG HEAVENLY!

I also said goodbye to my beloved Nokia N900 and managed to sell it off very quickly (it’s still quite a hot item).

Nokia N900

We also had a weekend away in Cherating at a dog friendly resort with #emocharlie called Ruby’s Resort – great place for those with furkids.

Ruby's Resort

I also took a few turns cooking, here’s one of my dishes Spicy Tuna Tagliatelle pasta!

Spicy Tuna Tagliatelle Pasta

I also managed to score a place at the Absolut Academy with Matt Pomeory – which was a fantastic learning experience. I’ll write more about that later.

Absolut Academy

I also attended my first WebCampKL (on the last Wednesday of every month) and I gave a talk entitled – The History of the Future. Here’s my homeboy Colin Charles talking about the future of databases and storage engines.

Colin Charles

I just went to another one last night and it was awesome, I think I shall be appearing regularly.

I also finally got the new rims for my car and got that sorted out properly (resprayed/repaired, new tyres etc) will write more about that later. Do remember if you want to buy some 17″ wheels, I do have some for sale!

Enkei TME 6.5 Rims

And last but not least I had a great trip to Malacca for the Shutter Asia 4th anniversary gathering and celebration – it was a great trip!

Shutter Asia 4th Anniversary

That’s all for now!

Will write about Malacca soon – ate far too much and it was WONDERFUL!

On this day (or near enough) in…

2010 – Random Post #6 — World Cup Fever, Tiles & FOOD
2009 – What a Weekend
2008 – Movie Review — Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull — Whipsnapping!
2007 – Gwen Stefani — Aren’t Asians Great! from MADtv
2006 – It’s Friday
2005 – Malaysian Petrol Price NOT Increasing

You can find all Random Blog Posts here:

https://www.shaolintiger.com/tag/random-post/

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Continue Reading · 1 Comment · General Nonsense

WTS 17″ Enkei Bortex RPM2 7J Offset 45 5xPCD114.3 – Ori From Japan

You may remember when I changed my tyres back in October 2009 – Project Airtrek — Choose Tyres For Your Car — Mitsubishi Airtrek Turbo , well those tyres officially wore out a couple of weeks ago. So bad in fact that I stopped driving the car for a while.

I decided to change rims to accommodate some stupidly massive brake calipers later on 😀 And also so I could fit wider tyres (my new tyres are 235/45/R17), I’ll blog more about those later, and my new rims. Anyway I want to see these off, so if you know anyone who is interested do share the link 🙂

These are high quality, light weight original Japanese sports rims. The weight of each rim is very light at 16.9lb or 7.7KG.

Model: Enkei Bortex RPM2
Size: 17″
Width: 7JJ
Offset: 45
Mount: 5×114.3
Comes with: Original Enkei Bortex center caps + correct nuts to fix the rims to your car.

Good condition (all around 9/10) just one rim has minor curb rash (as shown in picture below) and is rated a 7/10.

The rims with my old tyres (215/55/R17) still attached on my Airtrek Turbo:

The rim without tyre, excellent condition:

All 4 rims are in my car boot ready to roll:

The one damaged rim with some slight curb rash, can be easily repaired:

Price:

RM1800 AS IS
RM2500 FULLY REPAIRED (Also will be resprayed in a colour of your choice using high quality 2K paint at a famous rim repair shop)

For the 2nd option full payment must be made up front and the respray will take approximately 2 weeks.

Can fit Airtrek/Evo etc.

Dealing method: COD around PJ in the day or night time around Desa Park City

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Continue Reading · 2 Comments · Cars/Motorsport

Dubstep – The New Big Thing – Dirty Filthy Wobble – Stop Brostep!

It’s been a while since I wrote about music, back in 2008 actually – Squarepusher (Tom Jenkinson) — Crazy Man, Crazy Music – so it’s about time I wrote about my new fascination – Dubstep.

Dubstep isn’t a new genre of music, it’s actually been around a really long time. It’s just started hitting mainstream success in the past couple of years though and in the past 6 months ago it’s just blown up with big artists like deadmau5 pushing new Dubstep acts like Skrillex.

Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in south London, England. Its overall sound has been described as “tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals

From Wiki.

I did used to listen to it way back when it was still eskibeat, it came from a mix of grime, 2-step (AKA garage) and the darker elements from my favourite genre – drum and bass.

I actually liked it in the early days, but didn’t like it when I tried it out again not that long ago – but then after the deadmau5 concert I gave Skrillex a try and it was pretty banging. This is probably the most common Dubstep track you’ll hear:

This is what you can consider ‘beginners’ dubstep, along with stuff like this:

Anyway those are pretty decent tracks, but get massively overplayed. If you want more stuff like that (we call Brostep – cos it’s kinda soft and upbeat) you can look for Flux Pavilion, Skrillex, Nero, Rusko Bassnectar and similar artists. High pitch vocals, some wobble and there you go – brostep.

Unlike Dubstep where sub bass is key, Brostep places more emphasis on ratty high frequency samples and oscillators that arent even low frequency. Toss in a few hip hop vocal samples and you are well on your way to being the worlds next big Brostep producer.

One thing I really love about dubstep (much like DnB) is the MASSIVE amount of awesome remixes of old songs, stuff like this:

REALLY love this one:

My favourite genre though is the REALLY filthy dubstep, nasty, face melting stuff that will make you poop in your pants. It makes your nuts vibrate because the subwoofer is having a spazm.

These are the kind of tracks that float my boat:

Be prepared to have your face blow off:

This is a classic:

That’s just a few anyway to get you started 😀

I find most of the tracks from google, hype machine and from Turntable.fm of course – MASSIVE dubstep following on there.

The biggest most commercial room is the dubstep main room:

Dubstep (They mostly play all the ‘chart’ stuff and it can get very repetitive).

The slightly dirtier room is:

Filthy Dubstep Wobble Nation (Not a bad room, depends who’s playing).

And the filthiest of all is:

Dirty Dubstep (This is usually where I am dropping absolute nasty pant filling filth).

But there’s not always people in there, but when there are – it’s a face melting room! Anyway that’s all for now, I’ll drop some more filthy tunes on here later if anyone likes it 🙂

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Continue Reading · No Comments · Music

Glen Grant Single Malt Whisky Tasting With Godiva

So this is the inaugural, first post in my new Single Malt Whisky category! Trust me when I say there’s going to be many more posts here!

I love Single Malt Whisky, seriously, I’m not such a big fan of blended Whisky – but I don’t mind the American stuff like Sourmash and Bourbon. I don’t know a whole lot about them though, so I’ll mostly be sticking to what I know and love – which is scotch.

Not too long ago I got invited to a Glen Grant Whisky tasting in KL, they are starting to sell it in Malaysia now under Albert Wines.

Glen Grant

The official blurb on Glen Grant is:

Glen Grant is a Speyside distillery, that produces single malt Scotch whisky. The distillery was owned by Chivas Brothers Ltd, best known for their Chivas Regal blended scotch whisky. It is the world’s second-biggest single malt whisky brand. Single malt that’s clear in colour with a distinctively crisp, fresh taste that has made it one of the world’s favorite.

As a side note, Glen Grant was purchased by the Italian company Gruppo Campari in December 2005 and due to that it’s currently the biggest selling single malt Scotch whisky in Italy

We got to test out the whole range, starting with the Major’s Reserve – this is a no-age-statement entry-level Glen Grant. Although from what I understood, it’s about 6 years old – but they don’t advertise that.

Glen Grant Major's Reserve

This is a very accessible, approachable malt ideal for beginners. I found it rather pleasant actually, especially for the age, the price range and the fact it was the very bottom tier – it was better than the 10yr offerings from many other commercial brands. Of course it can’t match up to the higher grade whiskies, especially in terms of body – but it’s a decent starter drink. Some may prefer to stick to something familiar though in this price range like a Teacher’s or Jameson’s.

Next up was my second favourite of the night and the most popular seller in the Glent Grant range – the classic 10 year old. I have to say – I really want to get myself a bottle of this! A very enjoyable, smooth single malt, which breaks well with a little bit of ice.

Glen Grant 10 Year Old

It’s quite intense and fruity (features that I enjoy) and has a long and slightly nutty finish.

After that 10 year old, we followed on with the 16 year old. I found this one a little bit harsher and actually preferred the 10 year old to this. It has the same type of characteristics of the 10 year old, but intensified.

Glen Grant 16 Year Old

For me, the next was the best of the night – and to date one of the drams that really sticks in my memory. It’s the Glen Grant 1992 Cellar Reserve – wow, what a drink. Even the Whisky Bible 2010 agrees and awarded it Best Single Malt (16-21 Years). Sadly there was only one bottle of that, Vijen and I surely did enjoy it. It’s aged in Olorosso sherry casks which give it a beautiful deep flavour, it’s fruity and sweet with a sherry overtone basically. Wonderful!

Glen Grant 1992 Cellar Reserve

The last of the night was the Glen Grant 170th Anniversary – which was a higher strength drink at 46% – but I can’t say I really enjoyed it. It was super light in the mouth, almost feeling like it evaporated as it hit your tongue. Taste wise, it is similar to the others with a hint of smokey peat. Something for the collector perhaps.

Glen Grant 170th Anniversary

The whisky was paired with some wonderful cuban cigars and chocolate from Godiva.

Godiva Chocolates

As for getting hold of some Glen Grant – the only place I know of selling it right now is Bakita at Changkat. If I remember correctly the 10 year old is RM390 per bottle and the 16 year old is RM400 per bottle.

It was a great evening (Thanks Winnie!).

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Continue Reading · 8 Comments · Single Malt Whisky

Movie Review – X-Men: First Class – SUPERB!

X-Men: First Class (2011)

Before mutants had revealed themselves to the world, and before Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr took the names Professor X and Magneto, they were two young men discovering their powers for the first time. Not archenemies, they were instead at first the closest of friends, working together with other Mutants (some familiar, some new), to prevent nuclear Armageddon. In the process, a grave rift between them opened, which began the eternal war between Magneto’s Brotherhood and Professor X’s X-Men.

The last movie in the X-Men franchise was some time back, I reviewed it in 2009 here – Movie Review — X-Men Origins: Wolverine — ACTION! . It was actually a pretty decent movie for action fans, nothing special or Oscar worthy but certainly not terrible. Before that it was X-Men III way back in 2006 – Movie Review — X-Men III: The Last Stand.

I’ve always been a big fan of the X-Men franchise and I honestly don’t feel they’ve had a bad film so far. So naturally I was quite excited about this franchise reboot, as so far all of the reboots have been wonderful – especially Batman Begins/The Dark Knight and Star Trek.

Well onto the film itself, it’s a bit of back story – mostly with characters you’ll recognize but probably didn’t know much about. This is where this movie comes in, it really starts out when they are youngsters and it explains a lot of recognizable features in the previous X-Men movies.

James McAvoy is just excellent as the young Charles Xavier – he really carries the part fantastically. He was pretty decent in Wanted — Better Than Expected! – but hasn’t really had any mainstream success.

I know him from the absurd but extremely amusing UK TV series Shameless. The rest of the casting in the movie is excellent too, really bang on. If you watch Mad Men, you’ll recognize January Jones (Emma Frost) – and damn she’s hot in this. Yah baby, that’s what I’m talking about!

January Jones as Emma Frost in X-Men: First Class (2011)

Lenny Kravitz daughter is pretty cute too (Zoe Kravitz as Angel) and of course the young Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) is very cute in her non-blue form. That’s enough about the chicks..

Apparently all the girls are going lala over the young Magneto, all I’ve been hearing about this movie is swoons and comments on how hot he is. He’s not a particularly well known actor but you might recognize him from Inglourious Basterds or Band of Brothers.

He is very good as Erik Lehnsher however and really nails the feel of the character, you can see the stance of Magneto develop through the movie and how the relationships are forged and broken amongst the X-Men.

Michael Fassbender as Erik Lehnsherr (The Young Magneto) in X-Men: First Class (2011)

The pacing of the movie is excellent, it’s very gripping and you really start to feel something for the characters. The action sequences are fantastic and I love how they use a bit of real history to set the scene with the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I for one can’t wait for the next movie in the new, refreshed X-Men franchise!

It’s doing fantastically well on IMDB with a score of 8.2 – I suspect it might creep into the Top 250. I personally think it deserves to be there.

I think this is probably the best movie for me so far in 2011 and I give it a super sonic 9/10.

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Continue Reading · 5 Comments · Movies

Chatime & Gongcha – The Latest Craze In Malaysia – Pearl Tea

If you’ve been to any of the major shopping malls (1U, Mid Valley etc.) or even some of the minor ones (SSTwo Mall) in the last month or so you may have noticed some small stalls with obscenely long queues.

I have to admit it piqued my interest, I thought WTF is that all about – must be some new craze! Remember the whole donuts thing and the crazy queues. Anyway I had a look, and it was a pearl tea stall called Chatime. I also noticed almost everyone on Twitter raving about it – with all kinds of people addicted to it, craving it every day.

Being the curious soul that I am, I couldn’t proclaim it a fad or scold them for being sheep without actually trying it myself. So that I did, I was out on a mission one night collecting a bottle of Glenfiddich 15 year old that a friend had got me duty free when I decided to try Chatime on the way home.

We popped into SSTwo Mall as we suspected it would have a lot less queue than other places we’d seen (Mid Valley was INSANE).

Chatime Perpetual Queue

There was a small queue, but nothing too bad. I went for number 1, one of the recommended choices – Roasted Tea and I added pearls. It was RM5.90 for the large side, with an extra RM1 for the pearls. So almost RM7 for a tea……ok I thought to myself. Give it a chance!

Bear in mind I can get myself a small bottle of beer for RM7!

Honestly I was expected something amazing the way people have been raving about it, I expected to hear angels trumpets when I took my first sip.

Did I get that? No I did not.

Chatime Roasted Pearl Tea

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad – it is nice. But is it that nice? No. Would I go out of my way to get a taste of it? No. Does it cost too much? Yes.

KL people have fairly advanced palates, so honestly I expected more from the ranting and raving. But then again, it’s just a difference of taste. Different people like different things.

It’s like when you go to see a movie that everyone has been raving about, or it won an Oscar or something…and then it’s like a 4/10. It’s that kind of disaappointed feeling (There Will Be Blood comes to mind).

It is decent tea, it has no ice in it (which is good), it doesn’t have the powdery pasar malam pearl tea taste (but then some people like that) and they are generous with the pearls.

But the best pearl tea I’ve ever had is from the Taiwanese restaurant at One-stop, Pulau Tikus – Penang.

There are plenty of other options around too, there a shop in Tropicana City Mall on LG floor that has no queue, tastes just as good and is about half the price of Chatime. I also like the tea from Little Taiwan (this one was from Tesco Kepong) for RM3.50. They have a promo at the moment, their tea without pearls is only RM1.80!

Little Taiwan Pearl Tea

Anyway that’s my 2 cents on the whole Chatime thing, if you’ve tried it and you love it. Tell me why and which flavour you love, I’ll probably give it another chance one day – so I’m open to suggestions.

If you’ve tried it and feel the same as me, let me know too.

That’s all for now!

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