Marsha Maung: I write. I love. I live

They’re still around ? I was surprised to find that my childhood dreamboats are still in the entertainment Hollywood scene. Some of them have disappeared, seemingly, into oblivion while others ( Johnny Depp of 21 Jump Street) have hopped onto bigger yachts. Those who did not do an aboutturn must have, I assume, decided to explore other industries…business being the most likely alternate option for celebrities. But I was surprised to find Neil Patrick Harris still around the entertainment scene. What has he been doing because I’ve definitely not heard much about him…not after Doogie Howse r was wrapped up. Oh, but I had it bad for this lil Doc. Back then, the concept of having a teenager doctor was so exciting that I dreamt about Neil Patrick Harris come nurse a fingernail that I broke while watching his series. When he was young, he had this nerdy look and beguiling smile that simply called out to you, didn’t he? (I TOLD you I had a thing for slightly nerdy guys!) In reality...

I’ve nothing against them , honestly, I don’t. I just can’t figure out something. You see, some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouths with loaded parents and they are born in a pool of cash. As much as it is none of their fault, I am wondering if they ever feel the pain of being penniless. Some people have it all good from the word ‘go’ – sure, I’m jealous as hell because, imagine if I was Paris Hilton, I can do any-bloody-thing I want and nobody gets to say anything about it! Well…the paparazzi can but the extent of damage they can do is only merely superficial. At the end of the day, she still has all the money in the world and people still bow to her when she enters a room, right? People like Paris don’t know what it is to be penniless, have nothing to their name…how are they to know the true value of money unless it is through the eyes of another? Have they ever experienced the pain and stress of having nothing in one’s wallet with waiting mouths to feed? Have th...

Whilst we, Malaysians, make no mistakes about the usage of the word or term or noun 'corn', the word 'corn' actually goes back a long way. In fact, originally, corn was meant for anything that was as small as a grain of sand. Any small particle. You can even use the word 'corn' for salt. Does it make sense now why we call our corned beef 'corned beef'? :-) In the history books, when you refer to a country's corn, it means the crop that the country produces the most. As in Malaysia's corn is rice...or used to be rice. So, back in Hang Tuah days, you ask them, " Woy, bagi saya satu paket corn " and they give you a packet of rice. Right or wrong, I don't know, seriously, but you get my point. Therefore, when you're in England, you say corn and they think wheat . In Scotland, you have to be a little bit more careful because when you ask for corn, they will hand you a packet of quick cooking oats . In the meantime, our broth...

Synopsis : The Wilson Family was torn apart the night little Christopher was almost killed.... Though the two-year-old survives the brutal attack by his drunken father, his older sister, Kaitlyn, is convinced it's all her fault. Christopher is taken into care and never returns to the family home on the notorious Roxford estate south of London. But the bond between the siblings remains strong, and as Kaitlyn gets older, she dreams of a new life away from the violence of the estate and her mother's dangerous addictions. But most of all, she dreams of being reunited with her little brother. Will Kaitlyn's dreams ever come true? And if they do, could they really turn into a nightmore? Kaitlyn is the heart-rending story of a family ripped apart by tragedy and reunited by a twist of fate that threatens to destroy all their lives - and of a girl who has to choose between everything she has worked for, and the only family she has ever known. Marsha's Rating: 99.9957% ...

You know how some people tend to drive like they own whole damn road and we get this surging uncontrollable need to roll down the window, show them the mighty middle finger and screech “ Your father own the road ah !!??” Well, in this case, the kids had every reason to say ‘ Yes lor. Wanna fight ah ?” My in-laws (and don’t know how else is in the picture) decided to open a new fusion-kampong style restaurant in Taipan area…no name yet…not as far as I know but it’s where the old Pizza Uno used to be, right beside the huge Burger King. Somehow, I think it’s a good location (dunno whether it’s a good thing or a bad one) because it’s right beside and in front, at the back of major fast food outlets. Burger King and McDonalds is just in front and beside. There are only about a million other kopitiams and restaurants surrounding it. (subtle advertising here) Note about video : I've changed the video to a clearer one. Anyway, that’s over and done with. The restaurant’s not ...

For some very strange reason, if you gave me a choice between soup and fruit juice, I feel a magnetic pull towards the ‘soup’. It’s a very Chinese thing and I understand that a lot of Chinese people are rather soupy people too. Pardon the word ‘soupy’, my brain isn’t quite working today and it’s like working in ssssllllooooowwww mmmmoooottttiioooonnnn today. Sigh…such is life. Yesterday was a darn hectic day and today is another one – I’ll suffer more today because of the brain-deadedness. My mom makes the meanest soups in the world . Last Sunday, we went over to her place for dinner and she made this absolutely mouth-watering soup that had me gulping down a huge bowl the size of a wok! Darn good…to say that I miss my mom’s cooking is an understatement. She is THE MEGA TERROR cook of the century! I am biased….so? The problem is that nowadays, her memory is not very good, so, once in a while, you’ll see her asking herself, “Did I put salt already ah?” If you’re within hearing dis...

I missed my Monday Ha-Has a few rounds already and I miss it. I don't wanna miss it again. It's therapeutic to post them. Hope I remember to post comes every Monday...this turns out to be a Thursday Ha-Ha instead but who the fook cares, right??? Boy oh boy....

For weeks on end, the light outside of the bathroom in my condo unit was out – and for all those weeks, I would rather the kids and me trudge around blindly as we step out of the bathroom than sum up the courage to just change the light bulb. There is absolutely no problem at all with me changing a normal light bulb but this isn’t the usual one – it’s the round-ish kind – and to change it, I have to use a ladder, which I am reluctant to because I get shaky by the second-and-a-half step. So, whilst it might be like peeling off banana skin for you, it was a climb up Everest for me! Anyway, a couple of days ago, another light went off…this time, near the kitchen and where my live-in helper iron the clothes. I would look at her while she irons the clothes silently in the dark…she not daring to remind me about the very-obviously-dead light. Then the one in my study room started flickering. OK… that’s it ! It’s time to do something about this. If we go on like this, all of us would...

I’ve been in the Internet marketing, search engine marketing and freelance writing business for some time now and I used to claim that I know all the friggin’ dirty antics people can pull to get a hold on tens of thousands of email addresses and spam these people like crazy. The reason is, they’re basically playing the misconstrued, web-version of the ‘Numbers Game’. The more people you hit, the higher your chances of scoring, right? Absolutely. I also remember how I used to collect email addresses from forums….cut, paste, cut, paste…open email account, paste email, copy message, SHOOT THEM ALL OUT ! And during the early days as an internet marketing specialist with a dotbomb, there was also a time that my innocent and fresh (fully absorbent) mind was exposed to unscrupulous ways of winning the search engines over. Stuff like hiding the keyword text into the background was common…everybody did it….well, unless Google got so big that they could afford to hire people, found o...

Are creative people a little freakish and unique? I've heard some people lament about creative people before - "They're a little weird sometimes because the creativity in them makes them a little bit cuckoo somewhere in their heads".  On a scale of creativeness (of cuckooness), I think I rank myself a 7. I am not considered a creative genius but I consistently have some good (and mostly horrid) ones enter my head. And there's nothing more satisfying than to see one of your creation come to fruition.  (I bet you can see where my LAW DEGREE could fit into this whole equation or strange personality, right. Right) But do you REALLY think creative people are little funny? Or eccentric? If you ask me, my answer would be a wonderful 'yes' because most of the creative geniuses I know in the music, writing and other advertising or movie-making industry are a little funny in the head. They have out-of-the-norm perception of what's acceptable and are often a ...

Been having trouble trying to list marshamaung.blogspot.com as one my blogs in mybloglog and the support people told me that if I put a claim in this blog to tell them that this blog is mine, then I they would allow me to list it back here.  Of course, it's mine. This blog is mine.  So, please let me list it in mybloglog. 

Sometimes we just have to accept that we are not perfect and neither one of us should even try to be perfect. In the past, I've made a lot of mistakes and although I thought I tried very hard to be good at EVERYTHING or try to be the best that I can, frankly speaking, I did not. But that merely makes me mortal. Is it wrong to try to be as mortally mortal as possible? Name me a person who has not done or made bad mistakes in the past and I will give them only one name. Ismail. Mistakes are meant to be made so that they can help shape us to be the kind of person that we are today....hopefully, for the better. Usually, under normal circumstance, after making a lot of mistakes, we become better person. That's the usual rule of thumb.... BBBBUUUUTTTT there are exceptions, of course. I hope I don't fall into the fine ridge that stands rigidly between the group called 'better' and 'worse' after mistakes made in the past. Thought for the day: Mistakes...

Doesn't it just lift your mood when the sun is shining, the clouds are rolling by, slowly...languidly piece by piece without the dark, gloomy undertones of a storm? Because we're all so focused on looking at what's ahead of us, sometimes we forget to look up and see the sky. I love looking at clouds. Sometimes I go swimming with the kids and they'd be having a whole load of fun while I take on the job of being a 'life guard' on watch all the time. Don't even think about swimming laps or moving further than a few feet away from the kids. So, what do you do when you're bored out of your skull, getting darker and darker by the seconds (as it is I dont need any further tanning help, thank you very much!)...but to look up, watch the clouds roll by, the birds soaring, the trees just waving around in the air.... This morning is so gloomy. Wish it was like the picture above.

For some strange reason, I find this advertisement, which appeared a long time ago when Stephen Chow's movie came out, by Ericson very nicely done. It's very simple and captures your attention without anything too bold or fancy. It says everything with just the picture itself. Online Surveys  &  Market Research

“You will never learn how to be big unless you learn how to be small first” The meaning of the above quote is this…until you have learned how to bow down to another, you will forever be consumed by your own advantages and ego. Instead, when you get good at something, bow. I don’t have a particular hatred for loud, obnoxious people with ego the size of the moon (OK, yes, I do) but I think, personally, it goes beyond that. I mean this in the kindest way possible – it’s impossible for someone to be big unless he learns how to be small first. Humility even when face with tremendous success is an important part of life. Recently, a friend of mine and me, we had one of the biggest disappointments slapped across our faces EVER ! Do you know how it feels like to have someone lift you up all the way up to an altar-level, and then drop you like a bomb from way up there? No, well. It hurts…that’s all I can say. But it was the personality of this one particular person concerned tha...

Listen, it's good that I have a maid now, right? But you know how it is when a person's got his or her own kitchen...it's MY KITCHEN!!! Blardie shit, it's MY KITCHEN !!!! hee hee hee... Anyway, this maid of mine (below twenty years old) very enthusiastic about opening a restaurant or something when she goes home, so, she always asking me to let her cook. But the problem is that it's MY FOOD and I want to eat what I LIKE TO EAT, so, she have to cook it MY WAY, right or not? But no wor, she wants to cook it her way wor. The problem is....I also like to cook the things that I want to eat....but she keep fighting with me to test-drive her cooking skills. Every time, very very early, she will ask me whether she can cook or not? I am like....what the FFFF! It's 9.45am morning and you want to cook what??? Use who's chicken? Who's beef? Who's sayur? Who's soya sause? Who's.... OK OK OK....I am getting way overboard here because I am a litt...

Ok, after watching the little clip on youtube, reading the comments and then doing some thinking while drinking my Jasmine Green tea…hhhmmmm….my imagination got the better of me. Is it OK to just slap someone because you’re pissed off at that person? No, right? Is it OK to slap someone even if you’re recording a reality TV show? Not unless it’s written into the script and the man was expecting it, right? Whether you’re a man or a woman, you’re not supposed to use violence against another person. True, true. But men are supposed to…I dunno…never slap a woman wan, rite? It takes more strength to hold back a slap than to deliver one. Hence, a man should never slap a woman, right? For once, I am struggling in a fog of wordlessness trying to find the right words to say this so that I don’t sound sexist. Erm….er… In reality, if a woman delivered the first slap, perhaps…PERHAPS it’s in all fairness and equality that she gets the same slap back. But let’s take into acco...

Video lasts for 1 min 50secs. Took me more or less 4 hours to edit and learn how to use a new program to do this darn thing! Well, this is an edited video of what the kids did one fine day when mommy had a lot of work to do and did not have time to take them anywhere. So, this mom grabbed the camera, shoved it into their faces, taught them how to record videos and let them loose. This is the result lah....have to say that they got rather creative with their recording. I had a good laugh in the evening when they're done with the recording and I reviewed it. The kids looked at me like I went cuckoo or something because all they did was their...usual thing. :-)

One fine day, this mother had some major problems using her morning-wake-up-trick because her kids seemingly piled on pounds overnight. This article services as a reminder to parents everywhere to be more aware of our growing kids. Time will, one day, take them away from us when they don't need us anymore. Read this article ( marshamaung.com in new window )

Not only am I a freelance writer, graphic designer and occasional singer but I have a secret profession. Not so secret actually but it's my main profession. I am a driver. Yes, a driver.  And this is my boss. 

Life is sometimes one big brutal Cruella deVille. Gives you things very slowly, takes things away quickly and without warning too. But life is like that – and we have to learn to roll with the punches.   I’ve been using the same tagline for more than ten years now and despite the fact that…erm, I’ve contemplated more eloquent ones, I’ve decided not to change the tagline that I am using…which is….   Dreams make the soul, without the soul, the body is nothing. So live your dreams.   Everyone’s got to have some kind of dream, whether or not they realize it. Some dream of holidays in Miami , Florida . Some dream of driving a beamer. Some dream of owning a Nintendo Wii. Some dream of buying a new printer.   But some have bigger dreams…seemingly unreachable dreams. The road to smaller dreams is always easier and shorter…but dare you dream of bigger ones and dare you believe in yourself enough to believe that you will ONE FINE DAY realize that dream of yours?   I’m not go...

I received this joke some time ago and I kept it for a time when I need a quick laugh. The time come liao.... ***beginning of joke*** Before marriage: He: Yes. At last. It was so hard to wait. She: Do you want me to leave? He: NO! Don't even think about it. She: Do you love me? He: Of course! She: Have you ever cheated on me? He: NO! Why you even asking? She: Will you kiss me? He: Yes! She: Will you hit me? He: No way! I'm not such kind of person! She: Can I trust you? Now after the marriage you can read it from bottom to the top !!!! ***end of joke*** Well, there's one more thing that I want to say today and it's all about image. I revamped my main website http://www.marshamaung.com , right? And the main reason I did it was a branding or image revamp thing. I did the same thing with my facebook . I've always tried to project this 'hot, sexy, never-aging, cool, hip, hop, short-skirt dressup, fashion icon' kinda image but oh ...

Tried this little love calculator thing. Don’t know how I got there. I just clicked on something. So I tried it lor…. Name Marsha Love interest Sung si kyung (pua ha ha ha ha ha) Mobile number 01233455669985 ( simply put ) ERROR! Please enter a valid Malaysian mobile number. Oh. My God. This is how we all end up with a lot of ‘spam’ and unsolicited sms messages on our mobile phones alh! Don’t fall for it, don’t!! Before clicking away , I scolded the website . Tiu lei lah. Lei yee wai ngor chan hai kam chun ah? Lei dow chee sin, san king peng geh! Tiu hoi tit lah!!!

...I've gone completely bonkers! Seriously. The reason why I wanted to give my website MarshaMaung.com a new facelift is like this....it's more than to give it a new face, a new look...cyber surgery.....no no no. But here's what it looks like now ....not much different from this blog except that it's got much more white space there.....but I like PINK. I am such a PINK PINK RED RED person, you know. More consistent with my blog I got bored with the brown theme....come on, everyone, look at me. Brown is just ssssooooo NOT ME, right? I am optimizing it for search engines with new keywords and hoping to top some of my freelance writing competitors all over the world. One of them has given his/her website a brand new look and new copy and is now ranking very well in Google. Well! Huh! Here I come. I am starting a new Internet Marketing company with a friend, so, this is going to be a brand new round of doing the same thing that I used to do a long time ago but have s...

I’ve always loved using meebo.com to consolidate all my instant messengers. I have so many of them. Meebo allows you to log into one website where all your accounts, be it Yahoo , MSN , Gmail ….they’ll all be logged on at the same time. This saves me time. PLUS , I can place these chat boxes into my website and blogs, you see. Anyway, one fine day, I was working and all that, I got a message from one of the visitors of my blog. ' U r mother fucker stupid. Im student. I love you .' My first reaction was….huh? WTF? What did I do? Probably posted something that offended this fella, huh? But I decided to reply this person with something really simple. ' I love you too '…then I clicked the ‘x’ to close the box, thinking that maybe it was a prankster or perhaps a robot or computer program. Not gonna waste my time thinking about who it is and all that. Then it beeped again. “ I am sorry for saying bad words to you ” I replied, “ That’s OK. Behave next time ...

One whole year have snuck past without us noticing….today, 7th Sept 2008, is the one year anniversary of a friend’s death. A death that changed a lot of lives , shocked a lot of people, a seemingly unwarranted and unsuspected suicide which woke a lot of people up and sent a lot of people into a pit of sadness that they find a lot of problems getting out of. Although the fog surrounding his suicide remains unclear and answers never found, the searing pain of dealing with it has become far less but I am sure for some, especially his parents and his ‘girlfriend’, the pain must still seem so real and excruciating. In memory of his death, I just want to write him a note. Since he’s Hokkien (when we meet we speak in Hokkien), I would like to write him a short note today. *** *** Alvin, Oi! Ah-neh-khwai chh ni liao hor? Lu hor bo? Kanineh….of course lu hor lah. Hor lang karn lah….ki pun boh kong chh sngia. Ai ki tou ki. Anyway, wa lang hee-bang lu song-song ti ho peng lah, ok? lu happy...

I love to drink. I mean it. I love to drink because I enjoy it. trust me, my relationship with alcoholic beverages have brought me so much misery and pain in the past that I’ve reached a plateau….an understanding, a compromise, an agreement with it. Now, when I drink, it’s because I enjoy it and want to unwind or enjoy myself. I just wish some people would get a hold of themselves and understand the concept of drinking. Effects of drinking:- louder, braver, more emotional, impulsive, stupider, uncooler, bloated ego, imaginarily enhanced muscles, elongated private assets, sharper nose, bigger balls, etc. That’s how people get into trouble after drinking. Please drink carefully and don’t drive after you drink. Yes, I know you can but just don’t, OK? Take the friggin’ cab for crissakes. Just leave your ego behind, leave your car there….take the cab and be safe. When you drink, you see the world going slower, so you drive faster. Then someone honks you, alcohol takes over, you curse...

Thanks Eilene for cheering me up. I tried not to peek under the loincloth but man, it was tough, restraining myself!!! But it's not possible not to love an angel like that. Since this man-gel made me smile and caused my blood to boil, I thot you might like to take a 'peek-a-boo' too. Unless you're a man....and if you tried to peek, I'm disgusted with you! :-) My today rolled off to a bad start and am in serious need of some angel dust over here. Car broke down, no car, no piano, schedule in a scurry, work to be done, sleepy as hell.... ....until an angel entered my email inbox. By the way, do you think he's wearing any undies? Social Bookmarks