Friday, September 4, 2009

新しい時計!

And when he said he wanna watch,
He doesn't mean that he wants a watch.

I posted on my twitter a few weeks back on how my sister wanted a new watch, but my mother wouldn't let her buy this type of watch, so she said she will use my old watch instead, and let me buy a new one, and then I picked the watch that she originally wanted, and now she took the new one and left me with the old, which I didn't mind, really.

Yesterday, the band of my watch was ripped, so off we go to the watch shop. My brother tagged along because he wanted a new watch, so we basically spent our time there gawking at watches and so on.

There was a watch that caught my attention, and as I was fiddling with it purely for inspection purpose, my mother asked, "Do you want a new watch?"

Baffled, I answered, "Chyeah."

That didn't last long until I blurted again, "But what about my old watch?"

"Oh, I'll use it," said my mother.

*wowzers new watch my old watch was bought when I was about fourteen wowzers darn awesome*

So this is my watch!



The price is...well, if you divide the price of my brother's watch by ten, then you'll get the price.

Kinda cheap...compared to my brother's.



YESH I LOVE THIS VERY MUCH.

Homemade Skincare Series: Bear's Toenail

Dear Mr Bear, if you don't mind me asking,
Could you scratch my paw, it's itching.


So I thought I saved my document...

Turned out I didn't.

So as you can see...

I need to rewrite the whole thing...

This will be a fairly short review...

Unless I decided to blabber or something...

Which is probably not going to happen.

Also, I've just installed Windows 7 on my laptop.

And I haven't got the chance of installing every applications yet.

Thus the unusual style of post and watermark.

Oh well.


(I lost the original file lol)

BEAR'S TOENAIL.

This is quite a rare item to acquire. I don't encourage bear hunting but this was given to me by my aunt, who seems to have a knack of having some of the weirdest items ever, but anyhow, she gave me this because she knows that I have a severe case of itchiness.

Just scratch yourself with this large nail and your spot won't feel as itchy again!

Wow.

Truthfully, I didn't know the logic behind such a tool, but truly, when I finished rubbing myself (or rather, scratch) with this nail, my itchiness decrease-it felt as if those bacteria were wiped off my skin.

Perhaps that's it! The nail stripped those bacteria off the skin, causing the skin to no longer squeal in distress.

Furthermore, it is harmless to scratch your skin with this item since it didn't tear your skin off, neither does it contribute to infections. It is perfectly gentle.

So I say...

Bear's nail, you are my life savior from the constant attack of itchiness.

Thank you.

(I just feel like blogging that's all)

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Homemade Skincare Series: Rice Water

Rice, oh rice, how I adore you so,
Such bland taste, too hard to ignore,
Lingered forever, from my nose to my tongue,
Oh what would I do, if impossible to have some.

History claimed that Egyptians bathed in milk, while apparently ancient Chinese bathed in rice water…


Both tasted quite nice, which do you prefer?

I love me some rice water since it has a thin texture and doesn’t have the harsh milky taste…which is obvious because rice water didn’t have any milk in it thus wiped the possibility of having any milk taste whatsoever.

Anyhow.

Rice water has been used for generations in the Chinese community; even now they still use it to wash their faces from dirt and grime. The much rated SK-II even claimed to use the mighty pitera—which could be found in rice—in their products, although some has the suspicion that they didn’t actually include pitera in it, but actually sperm—

I don’t really know. After all, I don’t have any solid basis to back up my claim.

Rice water is supposed to lighten your complexion and control your oil production. The logic behind those claims is that rice water has detoxifying properties, which ultimately rejuvenate your face, creating a youthful and fresh complexion. So when they claimed to ‘lighten’, in my opinion, it wasn’t lightening your skin pigmentation per se, but more towards cleansing the toxin out of your pores, leaving brighter and healthier complexion from inside and out.

The drawback—or plus point, depending on your preference—of the rice water is that it would thoroughly mattify your face. Sounds great for oily skin, but really…I highly, highly do not recommend people with dry skin from using this, unless you have a heavy-duty moisturizer on your side, but then, it is best to not take the risk. Drying is an understatement; you’ll experience flakiness if you’re unlucky, and if you only have a thin moisturizer to replenish your skin’s moisture, then your skin would definitely wails and writhes in pain.

Take note rice water is a great detoxifier. I actually drank it for health purpose, so if your body has extreme toxin level, big chance your body can’t handle the tension created by those combating aliens, which results in various complications, and it will drag on until the good side wins, trumping the bad side with its superiority, which who knows when, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe someday. Someday. SOMEDAY.

And so you should know that when you put a substance as potent as that on your face, your skin is bound to absorb it better and probably fight with the aliens as well. And if you are supremely unlucky, the aliens will fight each other and treat your skin as their battlefield, possibly creating disaster and marks all over your face, until the war is over and you’re left with multiple scars but hey—at least someone has finally gained victory.

YEAH NONSENSICAL JAJAJAJAJA

So…Is it as good as it sounds?

1. Does it lighten your skin?
I honestly couldn’t see any lightening effect.

2. Does it even your skintone?
Best bet, no.

3. Does it brighten your skin?
Neither do I see any skin brightening.

4. Does it treat your acne?
It battles them! And it ain’t pretty.

5. Does it prevent acne?
It battles them! So yeah.

6. Does it lighten scars?
*shrugs*

7. Does it shrink pores?
Nay.

8. Does it help in unclogging pores?
Can’t say. I didn’t really notice.

9. Does it help in smoothing skin texture from bumps and other skin ailments?
Not really. I’m being positively vague.

10. Will your skin regain its horrible condition if you stop using this?
No. Your skin would just battle the rest of the residue.

11. Can you use this in exchange of other products?
Oil-control thingy, perhaps.

12. Have you found anything like this in the market?
Blotting paper? But even that is temporary. THIS IS PERMANENT YIKES. (if you don’t moisturize properly with heavy duty cream, of course)

13. DOES IT CONTROL OIL?
HELL YES.

Would I recommend this?

For people with deep patience who didn’t mind waiting until the battle is over then yes, go for it. Beware, the after-party is not pretty to look at, but hey, at least it is over.

For people with normal complexions who just want to brighten and control the oils on their faces—sure, I expect it won’t be as lethal. Many raves about it, so perhaps different skins react differently.

For others—maybe not.

I’m giving this a…2 out of 5.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Al-Quran: Comprehending the Meaning

And while your recital was proven flawless,
There is a person, who knows that you’re clueless.

I once stumbled across a post in a forum, asking about the understandability of Malaysians toward the Al-Quran, because obviously it is in Arabic, and the majority of Malaysians couldn’t understand that language, so how on earth could we read it? A person replied by answering that most of us have a translation of the kitab in our house, so we aren’t as illiterate as they think—we do get the gist of the true messages that lies inside the Al-Quran.

That being said, even if we were to read the translated works of say, Shakespeare, it won’t be the same since the translation couldn’t relive the same passion and delicate words used by the original author. Yes, we do have a clue of what he’s trying to portray, but that’s basically the end of our journey towards the glorifying world of literature.

So in a way, I understand the inquirer’s feeling, for I too think that non-Arabic speakers are missing the true beauty of Al-Quran.

And that is why this version of Al-Quran is super duper handy.


Not handy per se, because as you can see, it’s rather large.

Nonetheless, what’s matter is the knowledge inside, so I propped the kitab open for you to see.

Perhaps you’ve realized by now—the translation is not in English, nor is it in Malay—it’s in Indonesian. Yet Malay-speakers shouldn’t be wary, since obviously Indonesian language isn’t much different compared to our language anyway.


(clickie for bigger picture)

I believe the greatest thing about this Al-Quran is that they separated and transliterated each of the word in the kitab. That way, it is easier for us to learn the tone and the literate meaning of the ayat, thus letting us have the privilege of experiencing the true wording of the sentences. By the end of the kitab, you would find yourself recognizing Arabic’s words fluently, which is useful because Arabic is indeed the language of Islam. And if you found yourself hard to understand the overly literate meaning of some ayats, then you could refer to the edges of the kitab—they included complete translations of the Al-Quran as well, for guidance purpose.

All in all, this is a good starter for anyone who’s learning Arabic, or studying the Al-Quran in general. Truly, Al-Quran is the greatest piece of poetry ever, and it has been proven impossible to recreate by any human alive, so to have a chance to taste the succulent flavor of fine literature would surely tingles anyone’s tongue.

…food metaphor, not sure why I wrote that.

Anyway, this is possibly the greatest thing I’ve ever acquired.

Make one yours now!