I was browning a big ole chunk of meat this evening... tried to flip it over to get the other side (I'm making a pot roast) when it slipped in the pot and splashed hot oil on my face. OK... it's not as gory as you think. Before you begin fantasizing visions of my face mutating into some Dali-esque version of Rasputin... it was one drop of hot oil that landed just above my eyebrow. Still, did that bugger sting! At least I know there will be food on the table for tomorrow. So, what do you think I should serve it with? Potatoes, noodles or rice?
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So I was playing around with Google Earth and decided to check on the old neighborhood that I grew up in... you know... a bird's-eye-view? In fact, here it is. Let me take you on a tour of what use to be. (click the image for a bigger pic.)


a. Where the arrow points is where the old house use to be. Looks like it's been knocked down. I wrote a little about it on this Picture Daze post. I guess it's true... ya, can't go home again. (WTF are they building there???)

b. There use to be a fishing pond here... that was a remnant of an old tin mine. I nearly drowned there once when I was a kid... went fishing alone one sunny afternoon. (yeah, really smart move.) I think I blogged about it once in the early days of this blog... but I'm too lazy to find it now.

c. There was a hole in the fence here where I use to sneak into the Royal Selangor Golf Club. I liked sneaking in there. Kien has some stories too... but they don't count since his parents were actually members.

d. This area was where a whole squatter village use to be. It was featured in this early HNT. I had friends there who I played with... and their sisters who I had crushes on.

e. The actual paved road ended at the point of the arrow. From that point there was a dirt path that led to Kampung Pandan and a whole slew of tin-mining pools. My Tom Sawyer like adventures in my early youth all took place there. Now there seems to be a 4 lane highway cutting through and the mining pools seem to be filled in and housing developments have taken over the area.

f. There use to be a Hindu Temple at this spot. And back then the road ended at a huge monsoon drain. We would always pass it on the way to sneak into the golf club. There was a green located just where the hole was and we would sometimes piss off the golfers by stealing the balls that landed on it.

g. One christmas night when I was 15 or 16, me and a couple of friends were picked up right here and thrown into the lock-up. Our crime: sitting on the side of the road in our pajamas in the wee hours of the morning. (Go figure.)

h. If you actually read the transcript to my show Lies My Father Told Me... the 2 trees featured in this section were here... and it looks like they still are... a temple has been built around them. I guess progress knew better than to try to move these trees.

For the rest of the area... progress marches on, huh?

EDIT: There's a scheduled outage at 4 PM Pacific time... so, I just maybe posting HNT (with a brief explanation) early. To those of you across the pond and elsewhere... I will announce your postings when comments open... if you want me to. Just comment and let me know. :)