A Whole Lotta Chocolate

I just woke up from a 15 minutes slumber, been dreaming about chocolates. Hell! That's nothing unusual. I must say that I often dream about chocolates. Forget about diamonds, I feel that chocolates are girls' best friends.

This week, I've started longing for chocolates even more ever since I've watched Anthony Bourdain's trip to Spain where he visited artisans such as Enric Rovira and Albert Adria. Those guys do wonders with desserts, turning them into real masterpieces. For instance, Rovira's chocolate egg could rightly be compared to a culinary Fabergé. I'll give just about anything to have a bite off it.

Enric Rovira's chocolate eggs - Image from The Scout

For me, a good chocolate should not be too sweet and it should have a velvety texture at the same time. That would totally suit some Swiss chocolates - the best I've had so far. Despite all the hype, I don't really like Lindt chocolates. I bend more towards artisanal ones and I'm lucky enough to have an aunt coming directly from Switzerland this Saturday so that I could have my fill of those awesome chocolates! How cool is that?

His birthday is coming...

I've never been good at choosing gifts for people. I have not even once seen that wonderful glow in peoples' eyes when they receive something they had been expecting for a long time. I guess there must be something wrong with my ability at choosing gifts. I wonder what kind of talent it takes to decide on the right thing to buy for someone.

So this Saturday is Jevin's 23rd birthday. I feel that I should be offering him something special. Most of the gifts I've offered him in the past were either related to his car or cakes that I've baked. It's high-time that I got him something original. Damn! I'm having the gifter's block! That does not even exist. Hehe!

Anyway, dudettes and dudes, I'm gonna make the most of the few days left before his birthday to find the right gift! Any suggestions?

A farewell to video clubs.

Nothing sounds more from the past than video clubs in Mauritius. Some younger generations would perhaps not even know what I'm talking about.

Video clubs function in the same way as libraries. You subscribe to the club, you can loan up to a given amount of movies within a fixed time and you get to pay a fine for keeping the movie past that date.

Video clubs have started fading from the local scene as from the year 2000, when Mauritians gave up the VCR for VCD players which were later replaced by DVD players. As pirated CDs were being sold at very affordable prices (around Rs. 75 to Rs. 150), Mauritians no longer felt the need to borrow movies from video clubs. They could simply buy it from local pirates.

Video club owners then decided to get in the VCD and DVD business until in August 2001, when the anti-piracy unit of the ADSU (anti-drug and smuggling unit) brought about the closing of around 300 video clubs island-wise. To remain in the business, video club owners had to invest in original CDs and that represents quite some money so that only a few stayed on the boat.

Another factor that has caused the disappearance of video clubs is the introduction of relatively faster internet connectivity in Mauritius. We all have downloaded a movie at some point in our life. :$

Next when foreign channel packages such Canal Sat Maurice or Parabol Maurice started gaining some grounds locally, Mauritians subscribers did not have to wait much to get to watch newly-released movies in good quality. For instance, Canal Plus usually brings new movies within 1 or 2 years.

So dudettes and dudes, is there any video club in your locality and do you think this business is still relevant to Mauritius?

Image source: MundoAnuncio

When's the Mauritian Les Guignols de l'info?

Canal Plus' Les Guignols de l'info has already celebrated its 20 years anniversary last year. This show, which is quite popular in French-speaking countries, uses latex puppets representing celebrities, namely politicians to satirically and humorously comment on current news. The host of the show is the puppet-clone of TF1's news anchor, Patrice Poivre d'Arvor (PPD).

Nicolas Sarkozy's and Carla Bruni's puppets,

Obama's puppet

An awesome factor about Les Guignols de l'info is that the appearance of some of the puppets are very realistic and the voices and tone of speech attributed to each of them really resemble those of the real persons.

Anyway, coming back to the real purpose of this post, I was wondering whether something like Les Guignols de l'info would be feasible in Mauritius. I've created a little checklist for the factors that would need to be present to contribute to the realisation of the above.

1st - The politicians - Politicians, sure we have that and loads of it for that matter!

2nd - The audience - The audience should be willing to accept satire with humour and not aggressively. I know that a lot of die-hard Mauritian partisans could feel offended if their favourite politicians' blunders are criticised.

3rd - The anchor - Now that could be kind of rare to find. I'm not saying that Mauritian news anchors are not professional enough, but I mean it. Plus anyone doing that would have to be really brave, without forgetting that the person should have a secure job 'cause you know what happens when journalists "hurt" politicians.

4th - The TV channel - Given our only local channel's habit of favouring reigning political parties, it could not be trusted upon to provide such a show. We'd rather need an independent TV channel to carry out such a project and that could be a "long chak" as some would say.

Anyway dudettes and dudes, I'll keep on hoping that such a show becomes a reality in our little island one of these day and I feel like this might actually help our islanders not to blindly follow their political favourite just because it is a tradition to vote for such and such party.

Do you think something like that could be beneficial to our population?

Image sources:
www.miwim.fr
www.lepost.fr
www.24heures.ch

Wickedly cute

Noushie, my cat seems to have gotten more wicked lately. He likes jumping on my bed to get out of the window to climb on nearby trees to capture geckos. He then eats the geckos under my bed. From the noise that he makes while eating those reptiles, I could guess that they must be really crispy. Ew!

Plus he has recently developed a liking for crackers (especially corn ones) and tea. Today he even drank tea from my cup. Oh and by the way, don't you think that the cup holds a little resemblance to bloggers' meeting banner? Hehe! I obviously did not drink the tea after him, I put the rest of it in his bowl instead. Do you think it's safe for a cat to drink tea?

Ah! Anyway dudettes and dudes,I'm off for a good night's sleep. The day had been great!

How to avoid sounding lame.

Today the weather is half crappy and half sunny and the same can be said about my mood. Since I was mean yesterday, I have decided to be generous today by giving out some tips that all of us might use at some point in our lives, so read carefully.

Have you ever felt so annoyed at something that you felt like using powerful words such as "pissed off", "fuck you" or "asshole" but was too much of a coward to use those words such that what you wrote turned out to be "p*ssed off", "fcuk you" or "@$$hole"? Apart from making you lose your own self-esteem, this will make you look more lame that what you already were.

So I've decided to do you a favour and advise you on how to proceed the next time by offering 2 simple alternatives.

Alternative 1:
Write everything you want to say (including all the pissed-offs, fuck yous and assholes) in a word processor and at the last minute find and replace all the words you are not brave enough to endorse by using synonyms (like in the example below where I have replaced "pissed off" with "particularly annoyed").

Note: You might sound pretentious if you keep on using anything apart from "pissed off".


Alternative 2:
This one is a lot simpler than the first one and consists of 2 steps.

Step 1: All that you need to do is to stop using those small characters found just above numbers on your keyboard. Everything that renders stuff like "~!@#$%^&*()_ should be avoided. First because they make you look like an asshole, second because 100% of words in the English dictionary do not comprise of those characters.

Step 2: Gather up your courage and type "pissed off" correctly. Come on, it's not that complicated and if you are genuinely pissed off, you should be able to claim it. Let's do it together: P I S S E D O F F. It wasn't that difficult, was it?

You can now write those words correctly, without sounding like a cowardly moron and at the same time you will be allowing people to see just how awesome you are.

So, a next time instead of writing "I am so p*ssed off at this @$$hole. Fcuk him!" write "I am so pissed of at this asshole. Fuck him!".

Damn! This is so poetic.

Briefly: You either write "pissed off" correctly or find synonymous words but don't use "p*ssed off" as a word.

Note that I rarely use "pissed off" in my posts, I find alternatives. :D

Spam the spam

Today I woke up to a very bleak weather, the kind of weather that does not really contribute to cheering you up. So I decided to come up with activities that I could do for kicks in my own sweet maniacal way. And that's how I started to SPAM THE SPAM.

But mind you, Spam the spam is not to be taken lightly, you have to know who to spam. Don't go about spamming those people who are trying to sell you Viagra or Rolex watches. I'm not even sure those people actually check their mails. I mean they are busy guys, they don't have much time to waste like me and you. Either that or they are lifeless bots.

Anyway, my point is, if you want to spam the spam, choose People. I mean real people, not bots. My favourite playground for this is Blogcatalog. It always begins like this:

You get an email announcing that someone has added you as a friend. That is enough to trigger my curiosity since I am not a friendly person. So I check my mail.

Next I get a shout or private message as they call it and guess what? The person does not want to be my friend at all (not that it saddens me) and holds no interest in my blog (this tears me up) but instead wants to exchange links or make me visit his/her blog or make me subscribe to his/her blog by lamely complimenting my "excellent work". It's not that I want to be demeaning towards myself, but anyone who has read my blog would never qualify that as "excellent work".

So I sent a reply to the spammer to thank him/her for the astute opinion by saying stuff like "Wow, you are the only person who has loved my blog so far" etc... The point is to be creative with spammers. Model each of your replies to fit what they have said, that would be an effective practice of Spam the Spam.

Next is my favourite spammer, dear Miss H.R (I've been asked to remove her name here) from education.mu. I have deliberately included her name here because she rocks and I wanted her to know it! I sent her about 4 e-mails in the past thanking her for her spam and asking her to stop it, but she never seems to get it and my inbox is often flooded by education.mu's "useful" education tips and packages. Today's spam mail was something related to SC and HSC exams.

And my reply was:

Those spammers are tough!

Update: News travels fast and the person behind education.mu has given his word that he will be reviewing his mailing list from 15000 to a little 3000. Ain't that a great action? Duh!

I love...

I've survived yet another PMS without going on a killing spree. Ain't that a great achievement?

Out of contradiction, I wanted to write a negative post, full of hate, the kind of post where you let it all go and insult a lot of people, but then I realised that I don't feel like swearing and bitching. I feel happy and high. Damn! I'm starting to hate this new sort of PMS. It might be the meds I took though...

Anyway, this post is dedicated to some of the stuff I love...

1.Late Night TV watching

The first thing that comes in this incredible list of stuff that I love is tadaaa... yeah you saw that above, it's late night TV watching. I know, you must be finding that lame but I so very totally utterly love to watch TV alone at night, especially when they are airing old horror movies or else I'd take a cuisine show anytime. There's something great about watching TV when you're all alone and not being disturbed by someone who's asking "Damn! who got killed?", "What's the name of this actor?" or "who do you think is the killer?".

2. Songs that make you cry

You know those songs with heart-wrenching lyrics? No! Not the crappy ones, but the really awesome ones. There are some that I totally love, like Iris from Goo Goo Dolls or Bother by Corey Taylor or even Low Man's Lyric by Metallica. Those songs are truly do-listens along with some bad-ass metal songs, of course!

3. I love it when people understand my jokes - this does not happen often. Something has got to be wrong with me.

Anyway dudettes and dudes, I'm cutting this list short here 'cause My Wife and Kids is airing and I totally love this show! See ya'll!

Back to normal

Pomme-cannelle, Green Day, Eye make-up and my sister.


The slumber party was great. I have particularly liked the pomme-cannelle (apple-cinnamon) infusion. We discussed make-up; I have discovered a new craze for eye make-up. We talked lingerie, we ate chocolate, drank infusions, watched concerts and had fun.

I'm dead tired dudettes and dudes and have loads of blog posts from you guys to catch up on! :D Cheers! Have an excellent Sunday.

Slumber party - A quickie

While Jev's off camping with friends, I'm off slumber-partying. Got my pyjamas and homemade cakes ready. I am really looking forward to weird-tea tasting and cake eating.

I know Jev's party could be more awesome than mine (mainly 'cause of the booze) but I'm willing to have some awful fun tonight! Hehe! Yeah cakes and exotic teas can be quite fun if you're with the right persons. So I'll see ya'll on Sunday dudettes and dudes.

And oh by the way, I love it when people trespass prohibition banners (this one especially, does not make much sense):

Petit Raffray playground

Waiting for the cane-cutting

Cane in bloom
Originally uploaded by morinn

Isn't it the cane-cutting season yet? I don't remember the exact month when field owners start hiring people to down sugar cane plants, but I'm eagerly waiting for the cane fields opposite my house to be cut.

Once the field is cleared I'll be having an awesome view on the tiny hills and moles of Petit Raffray. It's such a breath-taking and soothing scenery. Too bad I haven't got a picture of it but once the field is cleared, I'll be taking lots of it.

Anyway dudettes and dudes, I'll grab some patience and wait wait wait... see ya'll!

On the 24, 25 and 26 July, Port-Louis is the place to be

The Human Resource Development Council's (HRDC) endeavours at bringing a 24/7 active Mauritian economy are still going strong and this time they are striking it big by organising a 3-days demo in Port-Louis from the 24th to the 26th of July to show us that the 24/7 economically active Mauritius is a realistic concept.

Shops, banks and restaurants will remain opened till midnight on those days. Measures have been taken by the HRDC so that even cinema halls remain active past normal hours. Musicians and artists have also been called upon to provide some entertainment till late on those three days.

Some bus owners have also agreed to provide transport facilities from certain regions of the island to Port-Louis and vice versa.

I don't know about you guys, but I feel really excited about this. And before voicing out my excitement any further I just wish that this event is not postponed. Nothing kills public excitement about an event better than a postponement.

Yeah so I was saying I'm excited because this feels like the beginning of the implementation of the 24/7 concept, which obviously would bring along job creations and keep the Mauritian economy geared. I trust that the people at HRDC had been giving out the best of themselves to effectively carry out this project and make it a long-lasting one.

Of course, some security issues might crop up because of the late night working and companies might start noticing to what extent people hate working night shifts but I'm sure these can be dealt internally by providing transport to and from the place of work and varying the shifts.

On the overall, I find the Mauritius 24 by 7 concept promising.

So dudettes and dudes, any opinion you'd like to share on this?

Update (27/07/09) - What I was NOT hoping for has happened - the HRDC has postponed the event to the 31st of July till the 2nd of August this year. This is due to several issues which have not yet been resolved by the HRDC. Like I said above, I hope this postponement does not kill public enthusiasm about the event, although I sure it has already disappointed a few people.

781 days on Twitter

To know when you joined Twitter: www.whendidyoujointwitter.com

After 781 days on Twitter I have only 130 updates. I know! I must be the most slow twitterer out there. The thing is, I almost always lurk around and watch the posts getting updated without adding my two cents. But if you ask me, I've read most of the stuff the people (or should I say Tweeps) I'm following have posted. I truly could not have let an opportunity of stalking people, while still remaining unnoticed slip. Hehe!

Coming back to the 781 days, when I first joined Twitter on May 24 2007, I honestly found the site quite bland. I signed up only to be able to display the "What are you doing?" widget on my blog. I think my first update was "I am baking a cake" or something similar. I gave up on the idea when Jevin created the "words running through my head" widget which you can still see on the sidebar.

However, Twitter has evolved since and what an evolution it was! When I started getting active on the site again this year I was baffled at the rapidity at which information were being shared and the number of Mauritians who've signed up there. This was a brand new Twitter to me and I discovered that Twitter was the place to be and I should have seen that right from the start.

Anyway dudettes and dudes, so much for my Twitter story.

If you're a regular member on Twitter, I'd really like to know how you found out about the site and since when.

And if you're wondering, I can be found @morinn. ;)

Awesome is the word - Second bloggers meeting

We wanted to carry out outdoor activities among bloggers and friends and oh yeah we did it yesterday on the 11th July 2009, which is going to be a truly memorable day to me. You might notice the word "awesome" a lot in this post, 'cause that's really the word that can truly describe the day.

First off, the event would not have been awesome without the people who were present yesterday.
So a really big thanks to all the dudettes and dudes who made it there! It was simply great! I really spent an awesome time and the day was full of laughter and great memories!

Then there were the awesome activities that kept us having fun:

The pierced bottle game

The flying Disc

I keep laughing at the funny faces and postures people made when sending and trying to catch the discs! Those were beautifully caught on the various shots!

Uno

Reena and her husband were experts at this for playing it almost everyday. Saajid kept forgetting his turn but he made us listen to some awesome Metallica while playing uno. Hehe... Sun almost always had the heavy cards at the end of a round and I could see all of Jev's card throughout the game! Haha!

The treasure hunt

The treasure hunt is my pride 'cause I organised 50% of it. (The treasure hunt clues have been blogged about by not-jevin).
Some notable moments of the treasure hunt were when Sun dipped into the water to fetch the second clue.

Then Dakshinee got the third one by digging the sand.

Saajid and Ashesh could have got the fourth clue right from the start when they found its hideout but they discarded it thinking that it was a dalpuri wrap in a plastic bag.

Finally, after a palpitating hunt, Sun and Yashvin's team won the treasure chest.

Reena and her husband won some cookies, the consolation prize for having been so close to finding the chest and they shared it among all of us.
As per Reena, the cookies were more useful to her than a domain name, the first prize. LOL. I made the cookies by the way.

Soccer

The handprints banner

Reena really showed great talent in doing the wordings for this banner! And we all showed our great talent by placing our hand prints on the banner! It was an awesome water-color moment.

On the overall the day was, yeah you've guessed the word, AWESOME!! I've made some new friends and I'm really happy we all bonded so well despite being complete strangers some months ago.

So the big question now is: Where and When is the next bloggers meeting?

Read or see more of the event by visiting these:

Yashvin's photo album on Facebook
Tahir Pirbhay's photo album on Facebook
Great second bloggers' meeting by Yashvin
Bloggers meeting. Why you should not miss it? by Not-Jevin
Mauritian Bloggers Meeting 2 by Ashesh

Dudettes and dudes, I truly hope we're in a greater number the next time. The more, the merrier!

All set to go

Tomorrow is nearly finally here dudettes and dudes. I must say that today has been a hell of a hectic day; the kind of hectic day that I love.

It first started out with loads of shopping; grocery and some other miscellaneous stuff. I was sweating when I took the bus home. I really love sweating these days, I wonder why. :P

Then back home, I made cookies and jelly. I prepared and diced my vegetables for tomorrow. Since we will be setting out early, I don't want to undergo the pain of dicing the vegetable early in the morning. I'm really looking forward to cooking tomorrow's lunch! Oh and I also made a chili paste to accompany lunch. Hehe.

Then in the afternoon I waited for Jev's call. He was supposed to come and fetch some of tomorrow's stuff as I don't want to be seen carrying buckets and other things early in the morning. My dad will think I'm gonna start a sand-selling business or something.

So I went searching for the buckets first and washed them. I did the best I could but they were oh-so-dirty!

Then Jevin came and it was raining as hell. I wonder why this situation seemed romantic and dramatic at the same time. Might be 'cause of the rain and his car lights.

Then the time is now and I am sitting and writing this post. I am smiling or suppressing a laughter and I want tomorrow to be here as soon as possible...

I should be creating a wishlist

Today I started reading A Time To Kill by John Grisham for the nth time. I just can't remember just how many times I have read that book but one thing's for sure, I always find it as captivating as on the first read. I'll encourage you to read the book if ever you happen to find it roaming around or you might watch the movie, which is not as good as the book, but quite fine.

Earlier today I had a quick lunch with Jev. It was fun. We tried a restaurant we've never been to before and I totally hated the salad. For me a salad has got to be seasoned with fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper only. Do you think it's weird of me?

Anyway, now for some gifts showing-off: I got this new tea mug from Jev on Saturday. I guess he knew that I'd love it. Miss Piggy, the ex-mug, is gone and I'm totally loving this new one. The handprints design is so inspiring!

Plus I got this Ming Shu, fleur de l'Aube perfume and Luminelle Mascara from my sister last week. The perfume bottle is cute isn't it? I just love Yves Rocher products, they are affordable and effective. I think I've just turned into a regular Yves Rocher customer.

Ah anyway dudettes and dudes, so much for my gifts. I've found an alternative to Thursday night Desperate Housewives watching and it's Wednesday night Desperate Housewives watching on M6 and it's in some minutes. So I gotta go... See ya'll!

Bloggers Event - We're almost there

3 days and some hours are left until the 11th July Bloggers Event. Are you as thrilled as I am? :p

Some information regarding the event:
Date: Saturday 11th July 2009
Time: Between 10:00 a.m till about 5 in the afternoon.
Venue: Flic en Flac public beach.

To aid us in finding the exact spot where will be meeting, follow Yashvin's image below:

We will be meeting at the beach opposite Restaurant de L'Ouest and Manisa Hotel.

Contact numbers: 761-9045 or 797-2369

Do save the numbers right away and contact us once you reach there on that day.

You might also mail on contact@morinnbuzz.com (as usual :p) to get more information or visit the event's Facebook page.

The activities organised on that day will be, as previously mentioned, the treasure hunt, beach soccer, beach volley and some other outdoor activities.

I would somehow make an appeal to all those who own a football to bring it on day. It would be really helpful. :)

Last but not least, we still have 2 free places with us to go to Flic en Flac on the 11th of July. We will be setting out from Goodlands passing by Petit Raffray via Port-Louis to Flic en Flac. So if you live in those regions do contact us. I wish to add that we might look scary but we are not (OK, just a little bit :p), so it's safe to ride with us. Sun is the only one who is willing to take that risk so far. Hehe.

Learning to fly - SCAR

My crush of the month is back after more than one year of absence. It's not that I've stopped listening to good music for all this time, it's just that I could not get myself to post about the songs I've been discovering and liking. But today, dudettes and dudes, is different. Today I've got to pay a tribute to SCAR, the band. I'll even add SCAR, the Mauritian band. Hehe, 'cause yeah, this band is from Mauritius. Now, how cool is that?

The first song that I've listened to from SCAR, a couple of years ago, was Learning To Fly from the album Neutralizers and believe me, this song really touched me. I don't know if it's the vocals of Olivier Alcide, the guitar riffs or a combination of both that confirmed the fact that this song will remain truly memorable to me. Plus I had a predisposition to like it since I almost always appreciate the job of Mauritian rock musicians. Hehe.

SCAR live at Underground in 2000

I'll let you guys judge by having a look at the lyrics...

Verse 1:
Where goes my heart? From where comes my dreams? Maybe its time to find.
Simply to know, simply to feel what's going through my mind
Saying what I feel, has always been so hard for me
So help me, help me please to get out of here

Chorus:
Learning to fly and cross out the skies is all, I'm asking for
I got to try to fly and reach out the stars

Verse 2:
Set out again on that dark road, nothing seems to be easy
What life reserves me, I really don't know, I just got to make my way
Maybe I was a fool to believe that I could succeed
So tell me, tell me what is going through me

Chorus:
Learning to fly and cross out the skies is all, I'm asking for
I got to try to fly and reach out the stars

Post Chorus:
Learning, learning to fly, to cross the skies, Gotta make you want to go
Up with me, deep in your heart and make your dreams become so real and so true,
Gotta make you want to go again, so just close your eyes and come on with me...

If you wanna hear the song, download it from my googlepages and let me know how you found it.

You might also feel like visiting SCAR's Facebook page to get more information on the band and to listen to some of their songs. Yeah! \m/



Pictures borrowed from SCAR's Facebook page.