Off!

It's going to be a little bit quiet here for the next week (if it hasn't yet!).

I'm off to visit two places in the next seven days, so expect some interruptions to normal blogging.

Anyway, Happy New Year!

Merry Crimbo!

Here's wishing all friends and colleagues,

Enjoy it.

If you drink, don't drive.

Joe's a winner!

If you have been following Britain's The X Factor, you would know what I am talking about!

I am glad that this talented young man won this year's The X Factor show.




I think this song is his best performance in the whole series.

Halal Bak Kut Teh??

Check out this news story from the Straits Times......

KUALA LUMPUR - A MALAYSIAN government-backed campaign to popularise a well-known ethnic Chinese soup by making a version that avoids pork and fulfills Islamic dietary rules sparked criticism on Tuesday by activists who fear it will confuse Muslims.

A halal version of 'bak kut teh', a herbal broth traditionally made with pork ribs, was introduced at a Tourism Ministry food fair last weekend to promote local cuisine. The new version contains chicken, seafood or vegetables instead of pork, which Islam prohibits.

However, some Muslims object to the use of 'bak kut teh' to identify the revamped recipe, saying the name is synonymous with pork among people in Muslim-majority Malaysia and neighbouring Singapore, where the dish is beloved by the ethnic Chinese community. 'Bak kut teh' means 'meat bone tea' in a Chinese dialect, but the meat is generally understood to be pork.

'This will cause misunderstanding among the public. It might even lead some Muslims to wonder whether it is all right to eat pork,' said Mr Ma'mor Osman, secretary general of the Malaysian Muslim Consumers Association.

The association plans to send a complaint to the Tourism Ministry, urging it to find a new name for the halal version, Mr Ma'mor told The Associated Press. The Department of Islamic Development, a government group that oversees Islamic policies, reportedly said it won't allow the dish to be formally certified as halal if it continues to be named 'bak kut teh'.

Islamic authorities are worried that Muslims will wrongly assume that the soup's pork version is suitable for consumption, the department's deputy director, Mr Lokman Abdul Rahman, told the Utusan Malaysia newspaper. -- AP

What do you think?

Maal Hijrah

Selamat Menyambut Tahun Baru Hijrah 1431H

Moga tahun baru ini memberi kebahagiaan, kedamaian dan kekuatan iman......

Family Diary

For many years now, we have been keeping a family diary, where almost every event that involved the family was recorded. When it is someone's birthday or any special day, e.g. Hari Raya or wedding anniversary, we would sign off on that particular day.

When I was studying abroad, the family diary was one of the first things I would look for when I came back for my holidays. I would catch up with the happenings at home.

One of my sisters is a regular contributor to the diary. I am trying to encourage her to keep the records online.

These are two pages are from this year's diary.

This was from the first day of Hari Raya.

This was from one of days in the fasting month.

You could see the menu for sahur and sungkai too!

Floating LNG

One of the things that impressed me during my week-long course in Singapore was that floating liquified natural gas (FLNG) concept is becoming a reality. Shell has signed a contract with a consortium with Technip and Samsung to built such facility, which will eventually be used for the Prelude LNG project in Australia.

Floating LNG concept has been thought about for a very long time and many international oil companies (IOCs) toyed with the idea. It is ideal to be used for stranded pockets of gas, where laying pipelines to an onshore LNG plant might not be feasible. FLNG vessel may be moved from one gas well to another, hence providing the flexibility of developing these gas wells, which may not been possible if the concept is not realised.

The FLNG vessel that Shell has contracted Technip and Samsung to build will have a dimension of 450 metres by 70 metres, making it one of the biggest sea vessels to be built. It will have a capacity of 3.5 million tonnes per annum of LNG, with additional capacity to process condensate and LPG (liquid petroleum gas). The vessel will have the capabilities to store LNG, condensate and LPG. An LNG tanker will berth alongside it for loading. At the moment, no financial details have been made available. It is open to anyone's guess how much it would eventually cost.

Here's an artist impression of the FLNG vessel. The LNG tanker that berths alongside it is a 140,000 cubic metre A-class tanker, so you could probably imagine how big the FLNG vessel is. That will be one huge floater!

Also, below is a video on the floating LNG concept.

Read more about it here and here.

Birthday Greetings for Sisters....

Happy Birthday to two sisters who share their birthdays today....

....... to Nana, here with her beloved CJ ........

...... and Wyna.

Happy Birthday. Many happy returns. Moga panjang umur, murah rezeki dan sentiasa dirahmati Illahi.....

The Final Draw

The draw for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa was conducted yesterday.

Group A: South Africa, Mexico, Uruguay, France

Group B: Argentina, Nigeria, South Korea, Greece

Group C: England, United States, Algeria, Slovenia

Group D: Germany, Australia, Serbia, Ghana

Group E: Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, Cameroon

Group F: Italy, Paraguay, New Zealand, Slovakia

Group G: Brazil, North Korea, Ivory Coast, Portugal

Group H: Spain, Switzerland, Honduras, Chile

I will probably support England, who appears to be in an 'easy' group. Group G looks to be the toughest group and predictably dubbed the Group of Death.

The top two teams in each group will proceed to the knock-out stages. The ones in italic are the ones that I think would proceed.

What would you do?

Should I be feeling sorry for:
1. the passenger in question,
2. the passenger sitting in the middle, or
3. everyone else in the flight?

Read more about it here.

I remember when I attended this work dinner that a prominent person seemed to be tightly squeezed in his chair. Some time during the dinner, one of the servers was sent to offer a chair, without the arms, to this person. I wonder what the server said when he was offering to change the chair to this guy?

Paolo Nutini......

How impressively infectious is this song? :)