Cotton House Store: 12-set Aluminium Crochet Hook Set

So, I bought a 3.5mm crochet hook set as a starter to practice my crochet skills and wrote a review of the store I bought it from. I did tell you that I was very happy with their service so this time I saved up a lil' and bought the entire crochet hook set, that comprises of crochet hooks from various sizes.

Yet again, I am very happy with their services. They also sell crochet hook sets made from aluminium, plastic, bamboo (I was tempted to buy this set actually because I like wooden products but they would get 'eaten' with age and would not be kind on the yarn fabric so with heavy heart I had to change my mind) and acrylic.

Here are some pictures to show you what an aluminium crochet hook set - the one that I bought - looks like.

The package.

The content. Guess which one contains the crochet hook.

That's right! The brown one!

*gets slapped for bad joke*

*Jaws theme music at the background*

Ta-da! Look at all the pretty colours.

If you want to know how long, and the thickness of those hooks are, 

I am going to use my own hands as a measurement comparison. 

My hands are quite big, you see - about 20cm.

The smallest of the crochet hook set, 2mm.

To the touch it was extremely fragile and delicate. If handle roughly it will snap into two.

 

The largest hook of the set, 8mm. This was very comfortable to hold in my very big hands. Crochet hook from the size 6mm onwards was held very cozily in my hands.

To be honest, my mother was more happy than me to receive this package and insisted that I open it before her 'cause she wants to see it. Macam budak kecik. XD

Peace out.

Swamiji's and Guruji's Exploitations.

I am extremely angered by all the quack Hindu holy men that are recently sprouting by the dozen in Malaysia. It signifies a decay in religion and most of all - intelligence. I am at a loss of words at how some people can be so stupid as to believe some random guy who claims to be a representative of God and heaven forbid, some enlightened yogi or Guruji. These are holy titles you EARN by years of obeisance, prayers and other religious ritualistic procedures. They are not achieved by merely dressing up and sitting solemnly on a badly photoshopped lotus flowers and halo background.

Fie upon you.

I literally had to stop to take a breather whilst writing this piece because I am absolutely LIVID.

A) First of all, let me educate you a little bit about cults.

1. What is a cult?

A system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object - Google Search.
Cue: Look at the joker in the picture above.

2. What are the characteristics of cults?

a) The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).
Check.

b) The group is preoccupied with making money.
I heard this clown charges about RM700-900 per session with him?
Check.

c) The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.

Check. (just are just some of them, mind you). 

d) Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).

"After all the insane speech, there’s come the time to eat bulb. This is the time where I realized he is using black magic. How? Around 20 people each time were asked to stand and u needs to look into his eyes while your mind should need to focus in your throat. Then he starts to mumble some mantras and suddenly I could felt something pass through my throat (it’s like air pass through). Once he completes doing that with everyone, now everyone is ready to eat the bulb (just a very tiny piece of broken bulb). I’m not sure it is a black magic or he plays with our mind set. After that he teaches on how to do meditation daily and how this meditation can make you to communicate with him indirectly".

Excerpt taken from Maire1.com - Bulb Eating Cults.

Check.

c) The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them/ questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

"those who believe him will succeed everything in their life but those who don’t they will be worst and never succeed anything”.

Excerpt taken from Maire1.com - Bulb Eating Cults. 

Check.

d) Is hypersensitive to how he is seen or perceived by others.(updated 20/12/2013)

Remember the dude sitting on the lotus flower? 

The ones one the left are his goons.

Check.

e) The guru is worshipped, rather than the principles or doctrines

Need I say more?

~*~

B) Now let me give a quick tour of what it means to be a holy religious person and the characters of ACTUAL yogis and gurujis and swamijis. 

a) They both have very little ego. This means that they do not identify themselves with their five senses, mind and intellect but with the soul (ātmā), that is the God within.

Seeing how this Guruji requires his followers to revere him like God himself, I don't think he passed the No-Ego test. He calls HIMSELF God so the whole thing about finding your inner God thing is non-present as well. 

b)  He himself practices the spiritual truth and explains the spiritual practices to the devotees by setting an example and explaining to them the practices in detail. He is content with the income as though it is a blessing from divine. Such a true guru can confer the true knowledge.

You hear that? Conversations with you is his income! He doesn't need your dime! 

c) A true Guru is not attracted by opposite sex and is beyond the weakness for money. He doesn’t expect anything of anybody.

DING-DING-DING-DING!!! What did I say?? 

d) He is steadfast in his devotion, he meticulously follows the spiritual injunction in all details, abides in his SELF, is never insincere, he doesn’t desire worldly wealth.

Read the last part, over and over again - DOESN'T DESIRE WORLDLY WEALTH.

c) He should not be short tempered, overconfident of his disciples, boastful of himself and jealous of others

The key word here is 'overconfident' and 'boastful'. Our local clown passes this with stellar qualifications. 

d) Does not present himself or herself overly fashionably and glamorously.

 

Cue: maniacal desperate laughter. 

Just read this article - it has a succinct information on what quack holy men comprises of. Our Guruji passed this test, again, with flying colours. 

GOD it is good being a psychology student.You are exposed to ways of the world, however on the surface.

Now do you see? You lot who follow this conmen are being bamboozled, robbed in daylight and being made a sap out of you simple folks. He is taking advantage of the very aspect that is deep rooted in most Indians - religiousness. These clowns know that when it comes to religion most Indians are not discriminatory hence this well thought out, large-scale organized crime that sucks your money. I have heard that the followers of this cult have resorted to borrowing money from others to receive blessings and prasadham's.

I facepalmed so hard at all these bullfuckery that my face is swollen. True holy men are those who have absolved all material possessions and even absolved the lust to own material possessions. They voluntarily reject all worldly lusts and possessions living with minimal, basic needs. True holy men would not ask for your money for you to earn his blessings - they would give it to you for free. All you have to do is talk to true holy men a lil' and ask for spiritual strength. THATS WHEN TRUE MEN WOULD GIVE YOU THEIR BLESSINGS. They wouldnt ask even a DIME from you! Just look at the points I have written in (B) and the link to the websites which I have referenced! These snakes lead a cult by duping the masses that CAN be duped.

This picture makes me extremely angry. This is the picture that catapulted me into writing this piece. I know Kali Yuga is the age of vice and evil but this just too much. That man is sitting on a pedestal and having his ego grew bigger the more people bow to his feet and sprinkle his dirty water on their heads. What kind of nonsense is this?

The unfortunate victims of these conmen mostly consist of poor Indians and lower middle class Indians who are desperate to make their ends meet. So how are they working towards it? By showering a shady character with their hard earned money hoping to give them MORE money. Excuse me but my logic has run away from all this nonsense, let me go and retrieve it back. Jokes aside, I'm sorry but you are never seeing that money again, EVER.

I hope this gets widely shared so those who know of this or even involved in this would get a real eye opener and start doing the right thing by sticking to proper religion and not because some fantastical conmen who had polished his talent for lying utilizing this despicable act for his own purposes.

~*~

References:

Characteristics of Cults

a) Characteristics of a Religious Cult
b) The False Guru Test
c) Characteristics of Dangerous Cult Leaders

Characteristics of Guru's

a) Who is a Guru?
b) Qualities of a Guru.
c) Characteristics of a Good Teacher

Cotton House Store Review

Yeap. My recent interest in knitting have led me to try crochet as well so I made some research about it, watched shitload of Youtube how-to videos on crochet and knitting and I think I would come to prefer crochet better.

I just love them pretty doilies, mmkay?

So, did you know - there are virtuously no embroidery supply shop in KL that sells yarns for cheap? Ipoh? Plenty! They have seriously good selection in the Old Town area but KL, aduih nak pengsan.

So I came across this online website - www.cottonhousestore.com.

Yeah, that's their homepage. I love the Maple Leaf logo. It reminds me of weed.

Not that I smoke that it's just something about weed that's hilarious.

Moving on.

The package.

The content. BEHOLD.

I purchased a crochet hook, size 5, the standard size for beginners I think.

I have previously purchased 100% cotton yarn from a flea market vendor. It was completely unsuitable for knitting so in order not to waste it I decided to crochet something using that yarn.

Ignore the prune fingers I just came out of shower XD

I was pleasantly surprised to find out they had enclosed samples of their wool! 

To summarize, I am darn happy with my business with them. I fully intend to purchase future supplies with them. Also they are having year end sales for their products so make sure you check 'em out. (if you are a knitter, crocheteer, that is heh).

Peace out.

Death is, But Another Life

I felt compelled to write this yet another piece on death because this is the THIRD time I am witnessing death this semester. It doesn’t help that I am seeing a string of number 4’s everyday. Which is disturbing in itself ‘cause if you’re Asian you know what the number 4 signifies in our culture. Be it Indian or Chinese, the number 4 in the Hindu religion signifies Kethu (with his/her partner Raghu) signifies death. In Cantonese, 4 is pronounced as ‘Sei’ which also means death. So it all fits. Lemme tell you about how these strings of death relate to the number 4.

First, in late September, a coursemate of mine whom I did not know existed to begin with until his death announcement on my Psych course website, passed away in a horrific motorcycle accident. Many people mourned his death. I would admit that I felt nothing because quite frankly, I did not know the guy. Why should I mourn for someone I didn’t know? Such was my twisted logic. For a week, the frenzy of his passing was all over my course. To my surprise, the deceased boy who I did not know until his death, was dearly beloved by many. Many good, praiseful things were spoken of his person. There was a small regret in my heart, that I dismissed this person not worthy of my sympathy simply because I did not know him personally. Out of morbid fascination I managed to asked a friend of his how he died. Such was my twisted mind.

I know I had a lot of growing up to do, I just didn't know that I had a lot of catching up to do when it comes to being human. My complete lack of empathy and sympathy to the woes and plight of another person who had lost their beloved is disgusting to say the least.

Then came the incident of that boy who fell from my apartment floor in a freak accident. I felt a small fraction of sympathy for this boy because I had seen him around rascalling with his fellow friends. My sister saw him hanging around with his friends the next thing she knows, quite literally a few minutes later he had apparently plunged to his death from the 5^th floor of my apartment, in front of my apartment unit. He fell straight to the ground head first resulting in a split skull and immediate on-the-spot death. Again, this sick side of me emerged. Morbid fascination, I had. How did he fall to his death? Suicide? Murder? More than feeling sorry for the boy who lost his life and those who will grieve him, I was more interested in the details of his death.

Nope, still stupid.

Then on December 1^st, I spoke to a close Facebook friend of mine. My interactions with him had been completely within the limits of Facebook, never actually met him in person. Sure, there were plans for lunch dates to discuss psychology stuff but these plans were never seen through. Work and odd hour demands happened in such a way that I wasn't able to meet him at all. Taking for granted that we will eventually meet, we kept putting off our lunch dates.

We even made tentative plans to go hiking and swimming. I made tentative plans with him to be his swimming buddy since he recently took up swimming as a part of his fitness journey and I am a pretty deft swimmer myself, thought it’ll be those funny ‘pro-swimmer vs rookie swimmer’ relationship. =’) Boy, I would be lying if I said I hadn't daydreamed about doing the Butterfly Stroke with him to challenge him! I did, I imagined my swim date with him, the two of us competing various swimming styles. I was particularly keen on doing the Butterfly Stroke with him. Now, they remain as mere daydreams.

Yes, this close Facebook friend, who was respected and loved by many due to his natural tendency to reach out to others a helping hand, passed away on Tuesday December 3^rd in a hiking accident with his hiking buddy in the notorious Bukit Tabur hiking arena. I received the news on December 4^th at mid-evening via another friend of mine who was even closer to him. My vision dissociated from the shock of it all for a moment. “Deryk has passed on”, that was the message.

I was like whut? WTF. OMFG. My mind raced on what the heck happened, that only 3 days ago he told me about how he wanted to keep an eye on an acquaintance that showed signs of suicide. Then I got the news of his death. I was numb the whole day. Sure, I managed to focus here and there but not without him on my mind the entire time, trying to get used to idea I will never have meaningful Facebook conversations with him ever again, that I can send him Facebook messages that will never get replies. Him with his dry humour. Him with his passionate and elaborate accounts of his passions. And his major crush for my friend (the one who broke the news to me). Him with his occasional rudeness. But hey, who’s perfect.

It took me the death of my friend to wake me up from my previous selfish, twisted self who reveled in someone’s death and their accounts. It took me the passing of an important person my community of friends and acquaintances to make me realize how serious the passing of a loved one can be. All those times that I reveled in someone’s death made me feel ashamed to be a human being, that to think at my age I’d have more common sense than to have childish fascination on what is clearly an issue that requires much love, understanding and empathy.

A friend had to die for me to grow up.

Maybe on a more metaphysical level, his time on earth is due but relating his death to how I have been reacting to other deaths that I have been witnessing thus far is a serious wake up call to my person, more importantly, my mental well being, or lack thereof.

Prior to the events that led to the announcement of my friend’s death, my Facebook dash was bombarded with the news of the tragic and sudden death of Paul Walker, the star of Fast and Furious franchise. Again, with morbid fascination, I weaseled on information of how he died. Never mind that million would be genuinely mourning his passing. I just wanted to know how he died. I even watched that aftermath footage of his crash that appeared shortly on my Facebook dash. With excited giddiness.

I need professional intervention.

Then came the news of the death of my friend. This had been a serious slap on the face. Truly, I have disappointed people who look up to me. I am better than this. I will be better than this.

Did I tell you that for my Philosophy of Life and Death extra credit assignment I did a short defence on Death? I even went as far as saying “perhaps people believe in the afterlife because they want the best for their loved ones, basically death of a loved one means you lose control and closeness with that person, so in an attempt to console yourself you conjure this afterlife concept and hope they are happy there”.

Just look at that ignorant statement of a bitch who hasn't lost someone dear to her until this point.

Well, I take it back. I take it all back and I stand corrected. For the sake of my friend I now believe in the afterlife and I hope he is heaven. Because god fucking dammit, I care enough for this person to wish him the best and want the best for him.

Why are all the good people dying?

R.I.P My dear friend. Till next time.