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!

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..

angel

Thank you my photocopy-room angel. =)

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*

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

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)