lundi, mai 28, 2007

banana and walnut

Yaay.. Baked my first ever banana-walnut cake today! And I'm glad to announce that like all the other stuff which I've cooked, it passed the taste test! =D I must be gifted at this man. Hehe.

Wanted to bake two loaves, but didn't have enough bananas, so I had to settle for one.

Ok, some photos of the baking process:
ingredients (clockwise from top left): mashed bananas, walnuts, flour, shortening, vanilla extract, baking soda, sugar and eggs

dough before baking

voilà! finished product

another angle..

Whole process took about 2 hours.. And the whole house smelt like the Waffle House at the end of it! =) Looking forward to chocolate brownies next week! Stay tuned!

hors de prix

Jean, serveur timide d'un grand hôtel, passe pour un milliardaire aux yeux d'Irène, une aventurière intéressée. Quand elle a découvre qu'il est réellement pauvre, elle le fuit aussitôt. Mais Jean, amoureux, se lance à sa poursuite et la retrouve sur la Côte d'Azur. Rapidement ruiné, il finit par adopter le mode de vie de celle qu'il aime et s'installe comme homme de compagnie dans un magnifique palace. Ce nouveau statut le rapproche d'Irène qui accepte enfin sa présence. Elle lui donne alors des conseils et sans s'en rendre compte, s'attache de plus en plus à lui..

Je pense qu'il était un film sympa et intéressant. J'ai ri beaucoup et a passé un bon moment au cinéma. Bien sûr, une sexy Audrey Tautou m'aide aussi. =) Son rôle ici est très différent par rapport à Amélie. Vraiment, je me suis amusé beaucoup, et je vous recommande de voir ce film aussi. Allez!

dimanche, mai 27, 2007

bon week-end

Hallo.. Just reached home! Went out shopping today cos its the Great Singapore Sale plus I planned to have a mid-term "break" after my MNO presentation on Thursday. =)
clockwise from top: Dr Ong, Stanley, me, Annie and Feng Xue

Our presentation was not too bad, as in the words of Dr Ong, "Good". Heh.. Quite a relief cos I need an A for this module to pull my CAP up! And.. if you didn't notice, my entire group is in blue! Damn cool right? Haha.. We left nothing to chance this time!

Went to the Hilton for wagyu dinner with Dad after the presentation. Not too bad.. There were not alot of diners so we enjoyed our dinner with lots of good conversation. The sublimely prepared wagyu steaks helped too! And there were mini-wagyu burgers as well! Just like mini-mes of the ones I made last week. Damn cool.

Started Friday with a major hangover cos Thursday's dinner was free flow and I went out drinking after that. Choo called when I reached home, and I had even more to drink. Woke up at 9, decided that I needed an early mid-term break, so I went back to sleep till about noon. When I finally woke up (still with a headache), went off to school to meet Andi and Letch for lunch. I was going to bring them to the hole-in-the-wall pizza place at 6th Ave. As expected, both of them loved it and Letch treated us to Gelato after that. Thanks Letch! =D

Went for the 7am Longhouse Joyriders ride on Saturday morning. Actually I woke up at 4am, but decided to sleep another hour or so and join in the second loop. Ride was damn good as usual.. The Joyriders are definitely very good for intermediate riders like me who are not good enough to ride with the national riders at Cycleworx or crazy roadies at Rodalink. Average speed is 32-35kph which means actually speed is about 35-40kph. Nice.. =) Went home after the ride, washed up then checked my exam results. Got 3 B+s, 1 B, 1B- and S for French. So I improved and am back in second lower category. As usual, everyone else scored better than me. But I'm happy that I improved at least. Now I have to study harder for my summer term to try to improve further. Gambatte!

Went out in the afternoon to meet Choo and James for lunch at Bugis. Went to Ajisen cos the weather was simply too hot to head out for cheaper chow. Then we went shopping. Hunted about at Raffles City for the non-existent Royal Sporting House which had already closed down. Heh. We split up at about 3 then I went to meet Letch as we had made plans to catch Priceless at Vivo in the evening. We went shopping first though.. Walking all the way to Marina and back. Shopping du fenêtre as she calls it. Haha. Actually not bad lah.. I managed to get some information on the stuff that I could possibly be buying soon. Hehe.

Priceless was damn good. Audrey Tautou is like so sexy can? Plus the movie was shot at the French riviera, mostly at Monaco.. Vachement beau! Maybe I'll give a review on it soon. Like tomorrow if I'm free, so I'm not writing it here now. =)

Slept in this morning instead of going for the SAFRA Mount Faber challenge. Heh. I must be like getting damn lazy lah!!! Consistently missing morning training.. Hmm.. =/ Anyway had lunch at home then went out to meet Chek for some shopping. Went to Phoon Heng first to get baking stuff, then to Sim Lim to get my RAM for my soon to be vista-ed notebook. Ended off the day by getting this:
all-new 2007 white polished Flak Jacket with black iridium lens

Damn cool lah! Got it at a cheaper price of $240 cos I bought it online. Totally fell in love with it as soon as I saw it a few months ago and finally its here! =)

Ok gotta go.. Tomorrow I'll be baking banana and walnut bread.. So do come back if you wanna see the results! Hee..

mercredi, mai 23, 2007

angel

Thank you my photocopy-room angel. =)

mardi, mai 22, 2007

mise à jour

Look what we have here tonight: Another major update!

Yeah I admit that I have not been updating this site as often as I would have liked to. But no choice lah.. I have been incredibly busy this week. Double whammy with presentations for both modules , gek1512 today and mno1001 on Thurs! Been busy preparing for the two presentations throughout the weekend. =\

Anyway, let's look at what I did for the past week:

Lundi: Cooked wagyu burgers! Michele was going to leave on Wed for the States so I decided to cook her a meal. Hehe. Went to Espirito Santo at Great World on Sunday evening to get the goods.. Damage was $15 a patty, still a steal considering the pedigree of meat and prices at restaurants.

So it was a 3 course set lunch with salad, main and dessert and wine of course! Didn't really have time for dessert so I just tossed in the Magnums lying around in the fridge. Ok pictures paint a thousand words so here they are and salivate away! If you ask nicely maybe I'll cook something for you next time! =D
salad + wagyu

up close and personal

banana, yogurt and pistachio shooters which I made the other time

mardi: Tennis with Kenny and his two pals. Wow have not played for such a long time already; Luckily I managed to muster up more than just a simple return and advance play. Kenny's friends were quite good, so that sort of raised the standard of the game. Haha..

jeudi: Went for unintentional interval training with the SAFRA runners. Unintentional because I just popped down for the Thursday run and not knowing what would the menu be like for the day. I was hoping for an easy one cos I hadn't run in weeks. Anyhow I survived all the splits. 1 x 2.4km + 5 x 800m. Managed to put in a consistent 1:30 pace for 400m all the way, even though I felt like giving up somewhere between the fourth and fifth split. Of course I am quite pleased and surprised by my performance, especially it being my first run after exams, and I had just come off with an ITB injury. Well this certainly bodes well for my upcoming IPPT! =)

vendredi: The return of Choo! Weiliang and me went down to the airport to pick him up. Sure as anything, some things just don't change - just like Choo's dressing. Let's just say that he came out looking like a third world refugee.. Boy was Weiliang and me embarrassed man. Haha.. Choo felt like eating prata so we went to Niqqi's, and in the end I only got home at 4am.

dimanche: Went for the Joyrider's 7am Longhouse breakfast ride after I overslept and could not meet Caroline at B1. Went to Longhouse looking for an easy spin, but ended up sprinting and trying to catch up the pack at certain points of the ride! Definitely not easy man! So well 'easy' is such a subjective term! Haha. And I did not even join in for breakfast as I had to rush to school to prepare for my presentations!

So that's the story of my life now. Oh well at least this Thurs I should be heading to the Hilton for dinner. Anybody wanna hang out this weekend? One last free week before I start mugging (again) for the finals.. * gulp*

mardi, mai 15, 2007

dah dum dah dah dum...

Busy busy busy.. Lots of presentations and projects now that special sem is in full swing, prohibiting me from blogging about some stuff, including wagyu burger day!

In the meantime, take a look at talented cartoonist Nick Gurewitch's work! Seriously man.. he is da best! More to be found at the Perry Bible Fellowship.
i like his style

dimanche, mai 13, 2007

the clock setter

Came across this totally irrelevant story today. Kinda sort of Heroes-like and I thought that I'd share it with you. =)

(start of story)
I am good at setting clocks and watches. Ask anyone! If you have a device that keeps time, I can set it to whatever time you want. You say you need this Timex Ironman Triathlon set to 12:17:44 P.M.? You got it, hoss. Like all of my talents, my clock-setting ability never gets me laid, and I don't get to show it off much, except around Daylight Saving Time changeovers or if a friend gets the battery replaced in his car. But a gift is a gift.

I have a little fantasy that someone someday might make a movie based on me and my gift for setting clocks. In the movie, I would be a character with a past shrouded in mystery, and I would be known only as the Clock Setter. A typical scene from the movie would go something like this:

Harry and Marge are a married couple in their mid-60s, recently retired. A few months ago, Harry bought a new digital alarm clock from Sam's Club to replace the old, worn-out analog clock they had used for years. When the Daylight Saving changeover came along last month, Harry went to change the time on the clock, but found that he had lost the instruction booklet that came with the clock. Dadgummit! Harry and Marge tried to figure out how to change the time without the instructions but only managed to make things worse. So many buttons! Harry and Marge bicker over what to do about the clock, and then start to really argue and fight. Harry "forgets" to rake the leaves in the yard and stays out all night playing poker with his buddies. Marge retaliates by "accidentally" undercooking breakfast and hiding Harry's Viagra. Harry leaves the Yellow Pages out on the kitchen table opened to the "Divorce Attorneys" page. Could forty years of martial bliss be coming to an ugly end?

One night, during the season's first snowfall, Harry and Marge once again are fighting over the digital clock. Ideas are advanced and ridiculed. Accusations are flung. Harry is just about to tell Marge that he always thought her sister was the prettier one when a knock is heard at the door. Harry opens the door to reveal a stranger, tall and wiry, clad in a worn cowboy hat, a beaten leather jacket with fringe on the sleeves, frayed blue jeans, and well-worn boots. He seems oblivious to the wind and snow, and his features and gestures exude a gentle strength and warmth. "Who are you?" Harry starts to ask, but the stranger holds up a hand, and Harry steps back, awed by his quiet authority. The stranger enters the room and strides to the digital clock. He manipulates the buttons with expert ease, and in a moment the clock reads the correct time. The stranger also sets the alarm to 8:00 the next morning so Harry and Marge can attend church together. He touches the brim of his hat and moves toward the door, still held open by the dumbstruck Harry.

Marge seizes her purse and touches the Clock Setter on the shoulder. "How can we repay you?" she asks.

The Clock Setter smiles crookedly, embarrassed by the suggestion that he would seek profit from his God-given talent. "Be kind to one another," he says, and then he is gone.

Harry closes the door and takes Marge into his arms for the first time in weeks. "Thank God for that man," he says.

"Yes," says Marge, returning his embrace. "He doesn't just change clocks. He changes lives."

(end of story)

Tour de Saru

Went up Desaru again on Sat with the Joyriders. It all sounded so easy: Bumboat to Penggerang, group ride to Renggit, ITT to golf club for ice kachang, ITT back to Renggit to seafood, group ride again back to the pier and bumboat back.

#@$#@%#$^%

Turned out that the Joyriders really can take the joy out of riding! Haha. Dun get me wrong, the itinerary was great, food was superb, sun was out and shining, and company was wonderful. Just that the "average" speed was not to my feet's liking. I mean going at 40km/h against headwind trying not to get dropped is not very fun, especially if its only your second ride after a long break and there are gargantuan potholes scattered all over the road. I totally sucked wheel most of the time.. Thanks Mika!

But one good thing is that now I feel that Desaru is hilly no longer. The first few time I went there I remember psyching myself up for the several relatively steeper inclines. On Saturday, I realised that they were no longer such huge problems for me. Yaay.

For a more detailed post on this, you can read Bernard's post here, and gawk at the photos courtesy of Joyce here, or by Joerg here.

mardi, mai 08, 2007

summer of '69

Summer term started today! I'm taking two modules for the first term - GEK1512: Understanding the Internet and MNO1001: Management and Organisation. Need to clear my GEMs and SARTORs before heading to France methinks.

School is deserted if you can manage to ignore the seemingly unending tide of PRCs. Really feels as though I am doing an exchange program in China!

GEK1512 was ok. Read the timetable wrongly and actually got to class 1 hour too early. Must be the summer air.. Makes me do silly things like this. Anyway i took the opportunity to fly down to Central to run some errands. Turns out that I am part of the pioneer batch for this module. Well it seems to early to say anything about the module now but I certainly hope that I can score at least a B+ for this! Another thing about this module is that I may get to be in the same class as the white horse! *GASP* Yeah THE FIRST-BORN ALL-WHITE PURE BREED HORSE!!! Oh man is he real eccentric! His accent, the way he interjects in class, his hair-tugging, etc. Can't help but feel a bit sympathetic for him.. Dunno why, just feel that way. I hope he sticks around in class, then got more things to blog about in class. =D

MNO1001 was much better. Class was held in a nice executive conference room, tucked away in a quiet part of Business School. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I was appointed class rep, which means that I have to make all the photocopies for the class this entire sem. So much for being honest about year 2 Engineering (insider joke).

Not much to write now about school. But worth noting is that there are some cute girls in both my classes! Yeah not bad I guess if you wander out of Engineering. Heh. Will end off with Bryan Adam's Summer of '69. Quite inspirational, if you get what I mean. =)

Oh when I look back now
That was seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Ya - I'd always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life

lundi, mai 07, 2007

me and you and a dog named boo

Idea for this road trip was born during the exams when I found out that Jullian would be heading back to Penang for the holidays. Plus, air tickets to Bangkok were too expensive. I had also wanted to improve on my spoken Malay, and where else better than to do it in the land of the Truly-Asia?

Thus on a very stormy 2 May (Wednesday) morning, I began my road trip up. First went over to CCK to pick up Cheuk Fong (CF). We had actually driven over to Mont Blanc together before so this trip looked like a longer version of our previous trip.

The drive up was quite uneventful. Fueled by horror stories regularly published by our own Straits Times, I had braced myself for drive-by shootouts at the rest stops, murders and the like. But nothing of that happened and I managed to eat my Dunkin' Donuts in peace at Sungei Buloh. The plan was to get to Penang ASAP before the evening peak hour traffic. Well, I need not have worried much, since we hit the bridge at about 1430, meaning that the trip up took 7 hours (we left at 0730). Sweet.

Some tips for those of you who may want to drive up to Penang or the NSH in general:
1. Keep to the left at toll stations. The ones on the right are for Touch and Go (MY's version of the ez-link) users only. Having to reverse would be a highly stressful and embarrassing situation.
2. Bring enough ringgit. Exchange rate at the toll counters is 1-1. Highly unfavorable.
3. Total toll one way up to Penang is about RM100.
4. Always ask for a receipt.
5. Keep left unless overtaking. Ikut kiri kecuali memotong in malay. Highly obvious, but often taken for granted.
6. A&W at Ayer Keroh. Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin Robbins at Sungei Buloh. Actually quite alot of other rest stops have them, but I do not have their names.
rainy weather ahead. lots of mist.

things brightened up considerably later on

one tree hill

Dunkin' Donuts! Boy do I love those sugar raises!

interesting billboards along the way

first views of the bridge and penang

Met up with Jullian after crossing the bridge. Went to his place which was at Bayan Lapar (west of Penang). Amazingly met Ben from ME in Penang too! He went up with his family and his two younger sisters were there too.. Woot! Rest of the day was just spent catching up on lunch and dinner, and sleeping. We had to wake up at 0200 the next morning for the Man U match!

my first meal in Penang - fried rice

dessert

they have Paulaner's in Penang too! Cheerios!

First day proper was spent wandering around in Georgetown, the main commercial district in Penang. Jullian brought us too all the famous hawker stalls. Food was a good way to get over the devastating loss to AC that very morning. Sigh.

I can't really blog the tastes or the smells of the food so I guess you just have to make do with photos! Haha.
took a bus down to town. damn retro bus.

CF and me

from the back of the bus

georgetown

Penang assam laksa..

.. eaten in a retro kopitiam like this!

thereafter we went for chendol

large crowd just milling about and eating

you tiao!

penang char koay teow! not the one in yellow.. the one on the plate!

dinner at Jalan Penang

Some views of Georgetown:
bright sunny day

Rolex!

KOMTAR

Bored of eating so much, CF decided to get his hair cut at one of the malls. I went to get some tausarpiah then went to look for him. Amazingly while waiting for him to be done.. This happened:
going to be baked

result

How? You can't really see the colour in here but I guarantee it looks "flammier" in real life! Yaay.. I love the Human Torch look! =D Always wanted to feel what would it be like to be ang-moh. Ok lah I had to pay RM60 for the chance to be ang-moh, but who said you can't? Anyway I'll be returning to Singapore as FT! Crikey!

Day 2 we headed down to Batu Ferranghi, which literally means White Man's Rock. So in a way I was on home ground. Drove over and I parked (quite illegally) at the Shangri-la resort. Went to the beach but there was nothing much to do except for expensive water sports. So we got ourselves some deckchairs to get some tanning done. More hotel-hopping and then we headed to the botanic gardens.

The botanic gardens were not really much of a park. Just a less polluted part of town. Walked around and CF got really excited over the flowers again. Hop over to his blog if you want to look at the photos he took; I'm not going to post any of them here.

Went to Queensbay mall in the evening to watch Spiderman 3. We wanted to take advantage of the student offer where students pay only RM5 for a movie before 1800 so we just managed to catch the 1730 screening. GV and Cathay can really learn from Malaysia man.. Not as though the cinema we went to was very shabby. It was a new cinema with the whole works! Why do we have to pay almost 4 times as much as students in Malaysia! Malaysia Boleh lah!

After movie Jullian took us to eat again. This time it was at a zhi-char stall near his place. Ever tried marmite chicken? Well I can tell you its really tasty man.. Nothing like anything I've tasted before! Then we went back to Batu Ferranghi for the pasar malan, or the night market. Loveliness.. Bought some friendly PS2 games and a lucky star lantern!
me and batu ferranghi

relic left over from the 2005 tsunami

botanic gardens

zhi-char dinner

crocs galore!

cornerstone of the Malaysian economy

Ok nothing much on the last day. Went to swim and then tan some more. Then stopped by Gurney for more hawker food. Drive back was as uneventful as the drive up. This time I stopped at Ayer Keroh for A&W! Remember those root beer floats and Coney dogs? Hmm.. Why did it die out in Singapore?

root beer float, coney dog and curly fries!

that ubiquitous sign

Ok this has been a damn massive post.. after all that food blogging I need to get some food now. Last two photos..
no animals were harmed in any manner during this trip

rock on. all 1553.5km.

vendredi, mai 04, 2007

batu ferranghi-ed

shoutout from batu ferranghi, Penang's hippest busiest beach.

So I managed to make it here on Wed in one piece. Journey was ok except for one lazy and completely lost co-driver. Going to make the return trip tomorrow. =)

Will update more tomorrow. For now, the land of the char koay teow beckons.

mardi, mai 01, 2007

update

Actually I am late in posting this, but had lots of errands to run after exams..

Monday was the last day of my exams. Left MPSH with the same old feeling of déjà vu - Its the same every year.. Mixed feelings of relief and disappointment. Had at least one question for every module where I made inexplicable errors this semester! There goes my 'A's.. especially for Fluids! Damn sian.

Popped by Proswift after school to get the car checked out for my upcoming road trip to Penang. Apparently its fine and I should be able to (barring robberies, accidents, etc.) to get back in one piece. (keep your fingers crossed!)

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Went for a bike ride this morning after 3 weeks! Weather looked fine, but based on previous days I had a hunch that it would rain. And yep my hunch proved me right! No sooner as I got to Mandai it started to drizzle. The winds were howling and from just the first peek of daylight I could see the dark clouds advancing in my direction. It was truly a magnificent sight! Both terrifying and beautiful at the same time. It was Singapore at her best (IMHO).. =)

Anyway decided to turn around but no use, still got completely soaked in the rain. @#$@%@%. My first ride after 3 weeks.. And it had to rain!

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Finally bought the Polar S625x! $300 second-hand from Eric. Must say that I really like the watch, although it might be a little tricky swimming in it and I can't seem to change the language to French unlike the RS800SD. But it'll be good to see how heart-rate training goes. Will keep this updated on the blog. Do check back for more!

Anyway, need to head off now to catch my 40 winks. Waking up tomorrow to catch the Champions League match between Chelsea and Liverpool (my prediction Chelsea1-Liverpool1 agg. but Liverpool gets through on penalties) and drive up to Penang. Ciao!