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Installing Mac OS X 10.5 on a 17-inch iMac G5

2012-01-31T09:25:00.000Z

The old iMac G5 required reformatting hence I tried to do so. Unfortunately the Dual-layer DVD doesn't work on it hence I had to search high and low for an alternative. Thankfully the steps on this site saved the day. Only change in the command is from devalias ud /ht/pci@2/usb@b/disk@2 to devalias ud /ht/pci@2/usb@b,1/disk@1 as listed on the iMac.
Anyway, with a brand new installation of Mac OS X 10.5 this old little thing should bring plenty of joy to my 3 nieces.

Impulse Trip

2011-08-25T23:11:00.003+01:00

Decided 2 days ago to follow Ray, my friends brother down to France. Gabrielle, a French girl I met only last Friday through Hehn who met her days earlier in the badminton competition in London offered to provide accommodation and bring us around Paris, then back to her hometown in Poitier then Nantes and La Rochelle.
Now on coach with Ray on an 8 hour journey across the channel via Dover.
Today has been an interesting day. Met 2 people in uni randomly and had a good chat. Managed to secure an accommodation in Langley near my workplace, and met my future colleague whom remembers my name! Seems they have been anticipating my arrival. Good stuff.
Had dinner with Ray at Wong Keith. Ordered the usual duck, char siew, siew yok on rice.
Didn't know we had to check in an hour before departure when we arrived at Victoria. Thank goodness they still checked us in 10 minutes prior. Will attempt some shut-eye.
Paris here I come!

Cotton Soft Japanese Cheesecake

2011-08-24T10:40:00.001+01:00

Andrea suggested this recipe to me as I was looking for random recipes to do. I remembered my mom used to buy these awesome Japanese cheesecake from 1 Utama more than 10 years back. They are fluffier and much lighter than your average cheesecake.

Turned out abit dense, not fluffy enough. I think I could stand to cook it a tad longer as the bottom was rather moist. I didn't dare cook it too long as I was afraid I might dry the cake up. Will cook it longer next time. It is also not sweet or sour enough. Didn't add lemon zest this time.

Crazy housemates suggested we add kaya and cocoa powder on top. Result? Interesting. But I personally don't think it's a good combination. Too many flavours.

Of Fresh Kaya & Curry Puff

2011-08-23T10:27:00.001+01:00

Met Qing on Sunday and she said that she was preparing food for International Cafe on Monday so I offered to make some Malaysian food as well. I settled upon Roti Bakar and Curry Puff after some thought. Recipe of Curry Puff from here and the recipe for Kaya is Hehn's aunt's secret recipe. We plan to sell fresh kaya in the near future. Should you want to find out more join the facebook page!

Two types of dough.

Fresh kaya.

The curry filling for the curry puff.

Curry puff dough.

Roti Bakar with kaya filling.

Fried curry puff. It opens up between the layers too much. Should try with less amounts of grease dough in the future or maybe none at all.

Lasagna Bolognese

2011-06-12T23:49:00.002+01:00

So JW came down to pay me a visit and I decided to make some Lasagna. Found this recipe and modified it according to what ingredients I had on hand.

So, for the bolognese sauce, I had minced beef, 1 large onions, 1 bulb of garlic, 2 cans of chopped tomatoes, 1 can of peeled plum tomatoes, a lot of tomato puree, some red wine, 3 crumpled fresh bay leaves, a dash of black pepper, a dash of mixed herbs, salt, 3 diced bell peppers. Phew. What a handful! For the bechamel sauce, just the flour, butter, milk but I threw in grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese as well.

Then the layering begins! I alternated lasagna verde (green ones) and egg lasagna sheets just for kicks. So, lasagna sheets, bolognese sauce, bechamel sauce and repeat until tray is full. End with bolognese sauce and bechamel sauce topped with loads and loads of mature cheddar cheese. The result is a work of art. Best lasagna I've ever made!

2 trays of cheesy beefy tomatoey lasagna!

Cheese just oozing out hence it doesn't look that tidy.

Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread

2011-06-12T00:06:00.000+01:00

Audrey linked me to this recipe on my Facebook wall one day, then we tried out the recipe last week and it turned out pretty awesome. Hence I decided to make some for the fellowship picnic today. I left it in the oven yesterday night after baking which was a bad move coz that dried it up way too much. It would've tasted so much better if it were moist. Oh well, people still loved it.

After leaving it to rise.

After baking. Expanded waaay too much and overflowed over the pan.

Of Risotto & Cheese Omelettes

2011-06-10T15:29:00.003+01:00

Was so bored yesterday, and since I had risotto ingredients including leftover double cream from the egg tarts the previous day, I decided to cook risotto with bacon, onions, garlic, mushrooms, spinach, mixed herbs, white wine, dashi stock, extra virgin olive oil, salt, black pepper, a whole lemon, and some double cream. Guesstimated everything and it turned out not bad at all. Hoho.

I also had loads of egg whites leftover from the egg tarts as well so I decided to google some egg white omelette recipe and found some which suggested tomatoes, spinach, cheddar cheese. Brilliant recipe. Threw in a block of butter, poured in the eggs, threw the spinach, tomatoes and cheese on and awesomeness resulted in the end.

Bacon, mushroom & spinach risotto.

Tomato, spinach & cheese omelette. Overflowing with cheese.

Portuguese Egg Tarts (葡萄牙蛋撻)

2011-06-08T17:32:00.001+01:00

Wanted to make some egg tarts for a while now and I got invited to some dinner at a friend's place so I was like why not make some to bring over. Followed the recipe here and used JusRol pre-rolled puff pastry coz I have no idea how to make my own puff pastry.

The custard was a tad on the sweet side; will cut down on sugar the next time I make it. Pastry can stand to be a tad crispier but, on the whole, I'll say this batch ain't too shabby.

Roast Potatoes & Sauteed Mushrooms

2011-05-21T13:34:00.001+01:00

This may look like a plain ol' dish but there are two things to take away from this. Number one, if you want to roast potatoes and have the skin crunchy, boil them potatoes for about 5 to 10 minutes first, then ruffle up the surface by vigorously shaking them in the pot and then only throwing them well oiled with herbs and salt into the oven.

Number two, don't crowd the mushrooms!! For 4 years of cooking, I have never properly cooked mushrooms. Now for the first time ever I am actually tasting the the mushroom. The texture, the flavour of the mushroom infused with the butter is brilliant. So yea, never crowd the mushrooms even if it means you gotta cook it in a million batches. I cooked in 2 batches this time round.

Durians

2011-05-20T18:58:00.002+01:00

For 23 years I have claimed to hate durian (The king of fruits.) even though I have never really tried it before. So yesterday I was in Chinatown and I saw some durians being sold. So being the Malaysian that I was, I wanted to share our awesome food culture with my fellow housemates so I bought a box home even with the fact that I hate it.

So this afternoon I offered some to Mike my chinese housemate who loves it and decided to try some myself. All I can say is that for the past 23 years I have been rejecting awesome, fresh, Malaysian durians coz they stink, and it took me having to buy crummy, overpriced, Thai durians sitting out in the sun in some plastic box before being carried all over London and Southampton in a rather warm weather so they aren't exactly fresh anymore for me to realize what I have been missing out the past 23 years: DURIANS TASTES FREAKING AWESOME ZOMG!

Beouf Bourguinon

2011-05-18T13:28:00.000+01:00

So, I rewatched Julie & Julia last week and decided to make Beouf Bourguinon one day. Started cooking this at 11pm and finished at 4am. To be fair I slept for an hour from 2 to 3. I would say this dish is pretty easy to make, but pretty easy to make wrong too. Literally everything that could've gone wrong went wrong. I should've bought bigger chunks of beef coz I had to individually sear each piece of meat. Thankfully Mike helped out with the frying so it wasn't too bad. Then the mushrooms I didn't cook it properly. Don't crowd the mushrooms! Srsly! Lastly, I didn't manage to find white onions. Literally went to 3 shops, Waitrose, International Foods and the local grocers and NONE of them had them white onions. I asked the grocer and he said if the 2 others didn't have them you should just give up. So to substitute I just used some scallions and red onions. Oh well.

With so many things going wrong you would think the dish would be crap. But the ultimate test was having my French housemate taste it and he gave the thumbs up! Woohoo! He said it tastes like what his mom cooks cept his mom puts in more carrots. Oh well. Beouf Bourguinon success!

Shoyu Ramen

2011-05-09T18:19:00.000+01:00

Or that was what I was trying to make anyway. Started with dashi stock from powder and dried scallops, threw in some shimeji mushrooms (Which costed £1.70. Didn't know they were so expensive!!) soy sauce, egg noodles, pak choi, spring onions, egg, white pepper. Done in 10 minutes. Healthier than crummy Shin Ramyun.

Clogged Shower? Get a Toothbrush!

2011-05-05T23:32:00.002+01:00

Wanted to blog about household tips for a long time now but never got around to it. Perhaps this may be common sense to everyone but nothing wrong with stating the obvious to those who may not be in the know.

So, you take a shower, and your shower ain't draining away. You get annoyed, you call the landlord, wait a week for the plumber to come and voila you can shower in peace without dirt water pooling at your feet again. Woohoo!

Well, if a shower drain is clogged, more often than not its just clogged with hair and all sorts of organic gunk. With any old toothbrush you can unclog the drain so easily you wonder why you pay whatever ridiculous sum to some plumber to do the same job. Steps detailed below with gross pictures. Takes less than 5 minutes to do.

Remove shower drain cover with end of toothbrush.

Remove gunk collector which doesn't work.

Dig about with your toothbrush repeatedly and dispose of gunk. Repeat until clean.

Dispose of gunk and toothbrush coz they stink like hell! With that much crap in there of course it's clogged.

Et voila! You have just saved yourself lots of moneh.

Lemon & Tarragon Chicken

2011-05-05T13:17:00.001+01:00

Roughly followed this recipe, only I didn't boil down the wine and lemon juice, instead just chucking wine and lemon juice into the oven for the last 15 minutes. All I can say is it doesn't taste as amazing as it looks. My food for my next 3 meals.

Scallops & Asparagus

2011-05-03T22:18:00.002+01:00

I had this vague recollection that scallops goes well with asparagus, hence I decided to try just that recipe. Roughly followed this recipe but added a dash of lemon and some parsley just for kicks. Turned out pretty good! Wanted to have it with rice originally but I bought some italian bread today so had it with bread instead. It definitely would go better with some rice. Preferably risotto. Next time baby!

Ignore the pitiful amount of scallops (5 pieces) please. Scallops ain't cheap.

1st Attempt: Fruit Tart

2011-05-03T00:15:00.001+01:00

Alright so I cheated my arse off and bought a pre-made sweet pastry base from Waitrose coz I couldn't be bothered to buy a fluted pastry pan when I only have 2 months more here. So anyway, never made pastry cream before, nearly botched it up by adding milk to the egg yolk and sugar mixture before the flour and cornflour which was supposed to go in first but that didn't screw things up which was good. Unfortunately, it was looking quite liquid-y so i thought I didn't add enough flour and cornflour, so I added an extra tablespoon of each. What I didn't know was that when you boil it thickens in like 3 seconds which was quite a sight to behold. My pastry cream was a little too thick and had a consistency of jelly rather than cream. Oh well, first time. The only other step was to melt the apricot jam and apply it to the base to prevent the pastry cream from soaking the base rendering it soggy and also to the strawberries and kiwi to make it nice and shiny. Lastly, pour in the cream and throw the fruits on top and voila fruit tart!

Life Plan

2011-04-28T00:02:00.002+01:00

Been brainstorming for ideas on what to do after I graduate. Below are some of the ideas I got or suggested by others. Please comment and suggest alternatives.

Teach English in Japan
Teach English in Korea
Do studio photography
Do journalistic photography a la Nat Geo
Do web design stuff
Learn cooking in France
Open cooking school
Open restaurant
Open computer troubleshooting shop
Walk around the world
Start environmental start-up company in Malaysia to realize the ESC dream and do something I'm actually passionate about
Create a super-website offering tech, culinary, photography, environmental, linguistic services
All of the above)

What else sia?

Malaysian Banana Cake

2011-04-26T23:47:00.000+01:00

Found a recipe here. Easiest recipe I've ever followed. Took all but 5 minutes before tossing it into the oven. Tasted not too bad, quite like the banana cake I used to have back home.

Homard Thermidor et Homard à L'Américaine

2011-04-20T21:05:00.006+01:00

So, Mike specially requested two different lobster dish as he didn't want all 5 lobsters to be 'wasted' in one dish. Well, thankfully, Julia Child's cookbook had 2 different lobster recipes. Lobster Thermidor which preparation I have already detailed in a previous post and Lobster à L'Américaine which shall be detailed here. This post shall end with photos of the final dish eaten the way it is meant to be eaten, which is outdoors in the sun with white wine!

Preparation of Homard à L'Américaine
(Animal activists go away! Brutal scene described below.)

So, the hardest bit of preparing this dish is to deal with the lobsters which is to chop them up alive. I got Mike to help me but he couldn't penetrate the shell so I had to have a go first myself. Thankfully I managed to find this video showing how to do it otherwise I would not have known how to even begin. But yea, it is literally the grossest thing I've ever done. I stood there with my knife pointed right above the head for nearly 2 minutes before I banged down on the knife with my left hand and proceed to literally saw through the head. All whilst the claws, legs and tail were squirming. After the head came apart, the tail is next, then the claws, then removing the tomalley (liver, green sac) and removed the unedible sand sack at the head and some greyish stuff which I have no idea what on earth it is. To err on the side of caution, I threw it away. Perhaps someone reading this can enlighten me as to what were they? The brain?

So, 2nd lobster I got Mike to try it coz I had to take some time to recover from the shock of poking around some poor sod's brain. Ugh. Mike nearly broke the shell when he attempted to split the tail so I had to take over and do the dirty deed again. The next step was to sauté the chopped up pieces in olive oil which took rather longer than I thought, about 10 to 15 minutes for it to turn bright red. Now the worst thing was the parts were still moving on the pan whilst sizzling. OMG. Anyway photos and videos:

Chopping up lobster alive.

WARNING: VERY VERY GROSS. DON'T WATCH IF OFFENDED TO CUTTING THINGS UP LIVE.
Video of my very very failed attempt of cutting up the lobster as humanely as possible.

Chopped up lobster with tomalley and brain(?) in the bowl.

Sautéing meat side down whilst pieces squirm about in the pan. =.=

Nicely bright red! The aroma from the cooked shells were absolutely divine!

First ever attempt at flaming with brandy wasn't quite as impressive as I had hoped it would be. Flames concentrated in one part of the pan coz the pan was too deep and the brandy collected in one part when attempting to light it up.

Simmering the lobster in white wine, chopped tomatoes, chopped parsley and tarragon, sautéed diced carrots and onions, brandy-flamed minced shallots and garlic.

Took out the lobster from heat source to prevent overcooking. To be added back to the sauce after adding the tomalley butter mixture into the sauce.

Preparing to Serve

Super securely wrapped refrigerated Lobster Thermidor from yesterday to fend off bad spores in my fridge!

Parmesan cheese to be grated and added to the Lobster Thirmidor before going into the oven at gas mark 7 for 10 to 15 minutes.

Nicely grilled Lobster Thermidor.

Completed Lobster à L'Américaine.

Final Result of 6 Hours Worth of Hard Work
(Not counting shopping time.)

Main courses and sides all set out in the back garden under the scorching sun.

Lobster Thermidor with salad and boiled new potatoes.

Half-eaten Lobster Thermidor in the hot scorching sun.

Half-eaten Lobster à L'Américaine in the hot scorching sun.

Homard Thermidor Preparation

2011-04-20T00:59:00.000+01:00

So the lobster recipe I hav settled upon is Lobster Thermidor from Julia Child's book. Just in case you don't know Julia Child, I suggest you watch the awesome movie Julie & Julia. Anyway, I just spent 3 plus hours cooking the stupid lobster following the recipe. All I want to say is that it better be well received for tomorrow's lunch or else. Personally I don't quite like mustard and I've tasted the sauce which was rather mustard-y. Oh well, either way it better be good. I've refrigerated them and will bake them in the oven with grated Parmesan cheese tomorrow.

Preparing the lobster stock whereby the lobsters are to be steamed (alive). A chopped onion, 1 chopped carrots, 1 chopped celery, 2 springs of fresh tarragon and 6 springs of fresh parsley boiled in 3 cups of white wine and 2 cups of water.

Reducing the lobster stock with the mushroom juice at high heat.

Straining the reduced lobster stock.

Making the sauce. Cooking the butter and flour before adding the strained lobster stock.

Empty lobster shell.

Sautéing the lobster in butter before adding the brandy to simmer for 2 minutes.

Sauce and mushrooms folded into the sautéed lobster awaiting to be filled into the lobster shell.

Filled lobster shells to be refrigerated for lunch tomorrow!

Of Scallops and Live Lobsters

2011-04-19T11:46:00.001+01:00

So Mike and Tristan went to the fish market last Monday and told of the cheap seafood there. Thus we decided to go this Monday to get some lobsters for cheap and try cooking them!

Anyway the fish market and all its glorious stench reminds me of back home. Haven't had a whiff of the fish market in a long time. Also, whole fish market experience is something to behold. Literally like 40 people started gathering in a parking lot at 1900, probably 80% Chinese, and started waiting for this elusive fishmonger to appear. It wasn't until like 1910 did the truck with the words 鱼佬 appeared and spent about 5 minutes starting to take crates of seafood out of the truck. Then he took out a whole bunch of green plastic bags and gloves and hung them on the truck signifying business is open which resulted everyone scrambling to get plastic bags, gloves and all the seafood they could want. A serious sight to behold.

Mike scrambling for lobsters.

Seriously 人山人海（鲜） sia! (So punny! Innit? Innit?!)

So yea, I managed to get some lobsters and scallops, but not without a shock when the guy weighed my 6 lobsters, told me it was [a ridiculous amount], realized that between Mike and I we do not have the moneh, hence I asked the guy to please remove one lobster and then he said it was [still a ridiculous amount] and I paid him. Oh well, my The box of 11 scallops costs £5.

After our fish market endeavours, we went to ASDA to get ingredients for Lobster Thermidor coz that seems to be the most popular lobster recipe I managed to scavenge from the internet. Albeit I am still on the fence on which to follow. So many recipes with different variations. Some uses just butter, most uses double cream as well with less butter. Some even has brandy but I has no brandy sadly.

After we got home, I first dealt with the scallops as I wouldn't be eating them in the next two days thus I had to clean and freeze them. Once the scallops were done, I then prepared the live lobsters to be kept in the fridge. Had to wrap them up with a moist cloth before putting it into the fridge coz the fridge is very dehydrating. Unfortunately, I held the last lobster wrongly by the tail instead of the head, and it started struggling and it fell and a piece of it broke off. I didn't think much of it until I saw it foaming from the mouth and I was like crap. Have to cook it now before it dies. And so, at 2230, I cooked a lobster. And at 2300, I cut open a lobster in my pajamas. I shall henceforth be known as the pajama chef!

Unwashed scallops.

Cleaned scallops ready for drying with paper towels and freezing.

Live lobsters in the bag.

Lobsters out on display.

Lobster nicely cooked.

Lobster on a chopping board with a knife.

Lobster de-meated.

Cutting up Lobster.

2nd Attempts at Cauliflower Cheese & Breadmaking

2011-04-16T23:40:00.000+01:00

My 2nd attempt at cauliflower cheese, 50g butter, 3 tablespoon flour, 300ml milk, pinch of nutmeg, lots of black pepper, 200g of medium cheddar, a whole cauliflower and a carrot just for kicks. Turns out amazing. Well, as amazing as cauliflower cheese can be which isn't brilliant coz it's still just british food.

Attempted to bake rye bread yesterday. Found a recipe asking for equal amounts of white bread flour and rye flour. Still can't get the kneading right as literally all the dough sticks to my hand when I try to knead it. Constantly added flour which made the dough extremely hard. Anyway, it tastes abit yeast-y still.

For dinner I had cauliflower cheese with some rye bread. Halfway through the meal I can literally feel pain in my throat. The thing's so heaty it gave me an instant sore throat. Never again shall I eat an entire dish of cauliflower cheese by myself in a day.

My lunch. Just cauliflower cheese.

My benchmark for bread. Butter and jam always.

Dinner.

Potato Leek Bake

2011-04-11T22:45:00.001+01:00

So I bought some potatoes and leeks, googled up what to do with it, found a bunch of potato and leek soup which I didn't fancy, stumbled upon some potato and leek gratin stuff and decided to try it. Only, I didn't follow it to the t. I improvised just coz I felt like it. I shall detail what I did, but I do not recommend you do it coz the steps are stupid, especially the flour before everything else bit. I was half making bechemel sauce but half frying everything else.. Anyway here goes:

A lump of butter, a spoonful of flour, onions garlic leeks and spring onions in it. A cup of milk, 4 whole sliced potatoes, simmer for a bit. Transfer to a casserole dish, stir in some diced bell peppers, and sprinkle on some cheddar. Into the oven for 40 minutes at gas mark 4 and onto the plate for some scrumlicious potatoes!

Fresh out of the oven.

A tad liquid-y but nice and light!

Seed & Grain Bread Baking Attempt 1

2011-04-08T16:53:00.001+01:00

After my successful attempt at baking pain de campagne the last time by cheating and using a premix, I've said that I'll try baking bread from scratch. The time is now! So, bought some bread flour from ASDA some time back, in particular this one and followed the instructions on the back of the pack. I bought dried active yeast which requires reconstitution with water which phailed epic-ly when I used too much water twice coz I misread the instructions. Used too much water. Worst part was I was Skyping with my mom at that time and she saw me holding that jug of yeast with 300ml of water in it and she was like "What are you doing??". Anyway, 3rd time's a charm.

Kneading was quite tough coz I used too much water =..= misremembered the amount of water i needed so I was half kneading half adding more flour. So yea after kneading and letting it rise twice and all that jazz later I finally threw it into the oven for 35 minutes and voila: bland tasting crap bread. It seems that I did not add enough salt or perhaps sugar so the bread tastes like crap. Tasteless basically. Oh well, next time I'll nail it.

Risen and ready for the oven.

Fresh from the oven!

Cooling it on a wire rack.

Bread with jam and butter.

Linguistics?

2011-03-29T22:10:00.002+01:00

Had a chat with YVC and we got to the point on what on earth do I want to do with my life as I wasn't sure if I will be satisfied being an engineer. Thus it came to me that I should really really play to my talents and make use of my skills and do the things that I love such as languages, cooking, photography.

I don't know why I've never considered linguistics as a course of study. Probably it's due to the usual Asian mindset of medicine, engineer or lawyer (Go watch 3 Idiots). But I should seriously consider and start researching on doing a postgraduate course in linguistics. I'll do so during easter.

YVC's crazy idea of creating a google of languages where I document like every language in the world especially dying ones so that in the future we will have a database of languages, a super-translator if you will. Imagine if that was my legacy. If that was my l will be remembered by. That would be awesome. Ah a man can dream.

One last thing, the past few months I have this inkling sometimes that I should learn Teochew and Foochow properly as they are my parent's mother tongue. I really should.. If only for the sake of immersing in the beauty of the diversity of languages.

Anyway below are a coupla links YVC found for me which I shall ruminate over during the Easter:
http://brainz.org/top-linguistics-schools-ranked/
http://linguistlist.org/
http://nlp.stanford.edu/links/linguistics.html

我所寻求的答案

2011-03-25T23:47:00.004Z

Just got back from the Chinese Christian fellowship and I have found the answer to the question that I have been racking my brain over the past week: What's the purpose of life? The answer was so simple yet I was blinded by my own emo-ness and self-loath the past few years. I don't know about you but the conclusion that I came to today was that the biggest purpose of my life was to help others and share in the joy that it brings.

After my previous epic emo post, several of my close friends, came to me and told me how awesome I am, how they got my back and all that and I felt really touched to the point of weeping. One apologized to me if he wasn't a good enough friend to better my life, another just told me that I'm the awesomest person ever and one more said that even though he knew me for only 2 years, he's one of the best manfriend (to use his term) he ever had. I'm really touched that I have made an impression in people's lives.

So yea, my purpose of life is to impact my friends' and others' lives and to leave them with a warm fuzzy feeling and helping them be a better human being. Helping Finally I have found the use for all my skills and abilities of which I have never used coz I was only thinking: "What's the point of this skill?" instead of "Who can I help with my abilities?"

My photography, language, computer geekery, cooking, handyman, {insert other skills I am unaware of in comments} skills, if anyone needs them, give me a shout!

My second revelation of the day occurred during the socializing period after the talk and discussion. Watching everyone mingling around led me to realize that selfishly desiring something will not get you anything. Just being the yourself and doing good unto others, something will come to you naturally if it is yours. 是你的就是你的，不是你的也強求不来。

I have been waking up the past few years to the thought: "Yet another pointless meaningless day. What's the point of it all?" From tomorrow onwards I shall wake to: "Who shall I help today?"

我牛逼的朋友们：帮我帮他人吧！

23rd

2011-03-24T07:54:00.000Z

Awoke at 0630 coz the sun was up and shining in my eyes even though I slept at 0200 yesterday seeking wisdom from the great 叉烧. Got out of bed at 0700 and started hanging out my laundry coz it is going to be a warm sunny day. With 2 reports due next Tuesday, and still 0 word count for both of them, today will be a busy day.

Had a small birthday dinner yesterday, invited Gabriel, Mike, Tom, Bosco and my housemates. Made myself a chocolate cake in the afternoon and friend some char koey teow for everyone in the evening. Was quite a lackluster party, but I guess that is my fault as I wasn't in the highest of spirits.

Never was in the highest of spirits of late, for I covet for things I do not have and never appreciating what I have. I had a lecture from YS on Monday telling me off for emoing over stupid things when I should be thankful that I am where I am now.

So yea, I have spent the past few years being frustrated at life, wondering why I have no sense of satisfaction from anything I do. You would think how would I have the propensity to think that when all I do is stuck around in my room all day sitting in front of 4 screens. Yes, I am anti-social, and I hate myself for it. I hate my phobia of speaking to girls and disinterest in speaking to people who talk about uninteresting things. The biggest failure in my 23 years of existence is that I shirk away from talking to people and just hide in my shell of geekiness wondering what the hell is wrong with my life.

I have also been feeling lost in life, living without purpose for the past few years. As I shy away from people, I also shy away from new things, choosing instead to stay within my box of comfort pondering why am I such a boring, bitter, lonely man.

Waking up to the sun shining in my face, I feel a sense of invigoration. Perhaps it is a sign of things to come from God. I attended a friend's baptism last Sunday, that night sitting in front of my laptop I suddenly wept for I felt so alone, life being so pointless and meaningless as an atheist. Believing in God gives one hope, hope that has been missing in my life for so long. I will have to think long and hard about how I would want to live the rest of my life.

To my dear friends, this is my declaration, that by my 24th birthday, I end this misery of an half-assed life and finally be proud to be who I am, to have the self-respect and confidence that any person should have and not waste any moment of my life ever again for I have but only one life.

Of Pain de Campagne & Roasted Chicken

2011-03-19T22:49:00.001Z

So after watching the BBC Michel Roux Great Food Revival regarding bread, I've decided to make my own bread. Bought bread tins and all that jazz. Was ready to buy bread flour when I saw this Pain de Campagne mix with all the added stuff in it. Just add water. Ok so fine I cheated ok! I wanted first to practise kneading and the rising and the baking, next time round I shall make bread from scratch.

Had some freshly baked bread with butter and jam. Describing it as heavenly does it no justice.

2nd time roasting chicken. A bit phail this time. May have overcooked it a tad coz the chicken had that soggy-gritty-i-dunno-what-you-call-it texture.

If In Rome, Get a Tablet.

2011-03-16T22:48:00.001Z

So, even my dad has an iPad. That should be a good enough excuse for me to get a tablet for myself innit? So there was the whole hoohaa about people charging like US$100 for an SD card to get Android 3.0 a.k.a. Honeycomb on the the Barnes & Noble Nook Color and I thought to myself: "Hey, why not get a Nook Color and slap on Honeycomb for the cheapest Android 3.0 tablet ever. Unfortunately the Nook Color is a US only product I had to pay costly shipping charges to have it shipped to the UK. Regardless, even with the shipping costs, it is still less than half the price of an iPad and a million times more fun as you can flash random custom ROMs on. Awesome.

On to the technical bits, I basically used the one from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=947071. Make sure you scroll down to the 2nd edition as I installed the 1st edition at the top yesterday. Had to re-flash it today with the 2nd edition which was noticeably snappier.

So yea, I has an Android tablets nows. Best platform for e-book and PDF reading ever. Don't judge me. Just an early birthday gift to myself.

Super cool Honeycomb lockscreen.

Default Honeycomb Launcher.

Of Cauliflower & Cheese

2011-03-13T15:58:00.000Z

Decided to try cauliflower and cheese after watching that BBC Great British Food Revival - 1. Michel Roux Jr on Bread and The Hairy Bikers on Cauliflower. Followed this recipe here. Made my own white sauce from scratch with flour, butter and milk. (The last time I attempted this I made bread instead of sauce. Epic phail.) Threw in a lone carrot with the cauliflower and added bacon to the recipe as well to spice things up. Had it with broccoli and some bell peppers. Tastes a little too rich for my taste. Probably shouldn't have used extra mature cheddar. Oh well.

Cauliflower (carrots & bacon) and cheese with garlic bread.

Of Kimchijeon & Miso Soup

2011-03-12T00:40:00.001Z

Made some kimchi pancakes (김치전) with the kimchi I made last week. Added just spring onions and big succulent king prawns in it. Awesome stuff. Since it was a tad dry, I had miso soup (味噌汁) with it on the side. ナイスメル！

Look at the praaaawnnnssss!

진짜맛있다!

ZOMGU Census

2011-03-09T12:38:00.001Z

Received a really thick envelope with the words 'Your census response is required by law' this sunny afternoon and I'm completely and utterly thrilled! A chance to fill in a 32 page form asking a gazillion questions (like am I Pakistani no I'm not Pakistani you douchebag), the German in me is all giddy with excitement.

They has Malay!

Shern's Dream

2011-03-08T08:58:00.001Z

Shernzor: btw leb i dreamt of you last night
황학성: what happened
황학성: was i cool?
Shernzor: BRB I NEED TO GO BATHROOM
황학성: wtf
Shernzor: yeah so basically
Shernzor: it was interesting
Shernzor: this much i remember of it is that we were going to ming han's house to play with life-size catapults
Shernzor: lobbing large tomatoes at each other
황학성: wtf
Shernzor: it wasnt his real house in subang jaya either
Shernzor: some random house somewhere someplace
황학성: wtf
Shernzor: i just know it was his house
황학성: ok..
황학성: random
Shernzor: yeah it was cool
Shernzor: there were other ppl of course
Shernzor: PE1 people i think but i cant remember
Shernzor: every once in awhile i dream of you in this manner leb
Shernzor: its a sign of my undying love etc.

Of Bak Kut Teh & Tiramisu

2011-03-08T00:11:00.008Z

Had a lump of pork, either make siew yok (烧肉) or bak kut teh (肉骨茶), decided on the latter. Nothing much to it. Herbs from a pack. Doesn't taste proper, lacking of something but couldn't place my finger on it. Oh well.

Decided to try my hand at making my own tiramisu using this recipe (yes the site is called cooking for engineers dontjudgeme), the simplest I could find. Hardest part was the whipping with some cheap dodgy £2 'magic whisk' coz I didn't want to pay £7 for a balloon whisk. Literally whisked the bloody whipping cream for 30 mins non-stop outside the kitchen in 3C temperatures as it seems that cold air is needed for proper whipping. Didn't know how 'stiff peaks' are supposed to look like but thanks to Arjun YouTubing it for me whilst I was whisking, I now do!

Back to earth now, 2nd tip, have enough coffee. =.= I ran out of espresso to dip the savoiardi as I underestimated the absorbing power of them. So yea, had to make some Nescafe for my 2nd layer of savoiardi and ran of of coffee then too. So yea. Lots and lots of coffee needed. Apart from that, tiramisu is quite easy to make and tastes awesome! (Can afford to add more rum next time!)

Bak kut teh. Nothing exciting to see here.

Layers and layers of sin. Coffee infused savoiardis, mascarpone cheese folded with whipped cream pimped up with sugar and rum, blanket of cocoa powder. Ahh.

Marbly texture.

P.S. Cousin told me that the (trade secret) missing ingredient of bak kut teh is oyster sauce. Hrm.

Of Pineapple Tarts & Tempura

2011-03-02T20:57:00.002Z

Decided to try my hand at making pineapple tarts after my housemates nicked half of the pineapple tarts brought by WK. Did it today with real pineapples, which was an extra step as the recipe asked for canned pineapples. Oh well, real stuff is always better. Filling's perfect, but the dough was way too crumbly. The making of the tarts itself was more difficult than it should be due to it's crumbly texture. I really should get a dang kitchen scale instead of randomly estimating flour. =.= 4 years on and I never learn.

2nd phailure of the day was my attempt at tempura. Yet again I randomly estimated flour which resulted in seriously thin batter and I forgot to add baking soda. And I didn't have enough oil to actually deep fry. It was a whole string of phail. Regardless, the only successful thing of the day was the tempura sauce which took like two minutes to make. Oh well. Better luck next time.

Too crumbly. But tastes awesome according to housemates.

Not too shabby looking for a first try right? Right?

World's most phail tempura. Only consolation is that I got the tempura sauce spot on.

P.S. I seriously seriously need a kitchen scale.

Wednesday Roast

2011-02-23T20:40:00.004Z

Had a whole chicken expiring by today hence I decided to throw it into the oven. Rubbed mixed herbs, salt, black pepper all over it and stuffed a coupla garlic into its cavity, threw it into the oven for 1 hour 40 minutes and voila awesomely roasted chicken. What I didn't appreciate however was my stupid housemate (a.k.a. chashao) stealing half my chicken. =.= There goes my dinner tomorrow.

Nicely roasted

Good innit?

Hainanese Chicken Rice

2011-02-22T16:18:00.001Z

Tried my hand at making Hainanese Chicken rice from scratch again. Not bad at all.

Nicely done.

Chicken was nearly perfect. I guess I could've cooked it 5 minutes more or something as it is a tad on the pink side.

Arjun really liking it.

Chinese New Year 2011: Year of the Rabbit

2011-02-03T10:31:00.000Z

Fourth year spending CNY anywhere but Taiping, I would say it's one of the best if only because my multinational housemates enjoyed themselves very much. (To the point of tears!)

So after coming back from some crummy careers fair where I never get anything done, Mike and I bought more food from the local chinese grocery. Started baking egg tarts at 3pm, main dish at 4pm. So what dish did we decide to have on this joyous festivity? Well, none other than curry laksa which was rather well received apart from the people who couldn't take the spiciness. Eggtarts was phail as I didn't add enough sugar it seemed.

After dinner we had a game of 'killer' or 'mafia' or whatchamacallitwhereyoucomefrom in Mike's room before moving to Massoud's room for a jamming session between Massoud and Tristan. Then another few rounds of 'killer' before our guests had to leave.

More photos here.

Char Kuey Teow

2011-01-29T02:31:00.002Z

Decided to try my hand at Char Kuey Teow after watching the following video:

Using the recipe found here, I managed to dish out a half-decent dish considering I've never cooked it before. Had to use dried thai rice noodles since they don't sell fresh ones here obviously.

Pre-chopped everything up ready for some 'char'ing.

The ingredients.

Two satisfied customers.

Me frying CKT.

Random Encounter

2010-09-14T19:50:00.005+01:00

So on the way back from Joshua's place whom I shan't see for who knows how long as the last time we met was probably 7 years ago, I passed by the Sheffield FC stadium and saw this guy asking for directions and didn't quite paid much notice. Then about 5 minutes later whilst I was still on my way back he was still going the same direction as I and he then asked me for directions to the University of Sheffield. Since I stay like 30 seconds away from the uni I asked him to follow me. We got into conversation: He did mech eng for his undergrad, didn't like it, got into the army, did some MBAs and Doctorates and he was supposed to give a talk at the University tomorrow at some management thing of some sort. He also asked where I was from and lo and behold his wife, Tanya was from Malaysia, specifically Port Klang, then went to Scotland at the age of 12 to boarding school, then did A-Levels in Australia. He lives somewhere near Stirling between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Visits Malaysia at least once a year. Loves it. Is quite convinced that Malaysia can achieve Wawasan 2020 in time which I proposed otherwise. Wanted to go to the bar for some dinner but was packed since there was a Sheffield FC match today. Looks like Bruce Willis but with a Scottish accent.
Nice chatting with you Brian. Made my day interesting.

Slovakia Day 3: Videos

2010-08-15T12:32:00.004+01:00

On the 3rd day we decided to visit the Slovak Paradise. We began with a trip to the Dobšinská Ice Cave. After the ice cave we were brought to the Suchá Belá canyon and trekked up in the best trek of my life. If you're lazy to watch any of the videos at least watch part 2 for a peek into the best trek I've ever walked on.

Slovakia Day 2: Videos

2010-07-29T22:17:00.002+01:00

Here are the videos for the 2nd day of our trip to the Slovak Republic. Highlight of the day is the rafting tour on the River Dunajec of which you have 8 minutes of it to enjoy.

Auto Login into Windows and Lock

2010-07-27T13:59:00.000+01:00

Note: Found this saved as a draft. Wonder why didn't I post it up earlier. Oh well.

You know how you turn on your computer and go away to make a cup of coffee or something, then return 10 minutes later and you're faced with the Windows login screen; you login and expect to be able to use it right away but no, you gotta wait another 3 minutes before you get to click anything as Windows is preparing your desktop.
Click Start and type “netplwiz.exe” (Without the quotes) and press Enter. Uncheck the box “Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer” and click OK. Enter the Username and Password of the account you want to enable auto logon for.
Reboot your PC to test it.

Trying My Hand at Korean

2010-07-26T23:09:00.001+01:00

Bored of English food and the only Malaysian food I can cook: curry, I decided this summer to cook Korean cuisine. Mind you, I've just started. More to come!

Ok this ain't korean per se, and I didn't make it from scratch but I had frozen 군만두 (gunmandu) with pak choi. Haven't had pak choi this good since back home.

불고기(bulgogi)! Well, at least the marinade was. I couldn't be bothered to grill it and ended up pan frying it. Taste is there though!

More 군만두 with 김치전(kimchijeon). Basically kimchi pancakes. It's really simple and you gotta be a real noob to screw 김치전 up. Had them with japanese short grain rice which is really expensive stuff over here but tastes awesome.

Slovakia Day 1: Videos

2010-07-16T22:52:00.000+01:00

Hehn, Audrey, JS and I went to Slovakia last month. And it was awesome! Ruminate over these videos whilst I compose a full post on it. (If ever!)

Undervolting and IDA Overclocking

2010-05-20T23:33:00.007+01:00

So I've been told that my blog died. Well then I shall revive it now with some techy stuff. More of a log for myself so that I know what settings to go for in the future whenever I reformat than for the general public's pleasure but here it is.

Undervolting the Core 2 Duo T9300

I mentioned in the previous post that I've undervolted my CPU and achieved lower temperatures and stuff, below are the voltages that are stable for my particular processor. Unfortunately for me the minimum voltage seems to be locked at 0.95V so I can't choose anything lower than that which is quite weird as my old T7300 which I have sold off can go down to 0.85V. I would assume that a 45nm CPU should be able to run at lower voltages than a 65nm one but Intel seems to think otherwise. Oh well, with 0.95V I idle at about 30C anyway or even low 20s if the ambient temp cooler.

Overclocking to IDA Multiplier

I recently stumbled upon this forum topic which details how to 'lock' your CPU at your IDA multiplier to effectively overclock your CPU abit. IDA stands for Intel Dynamic Acceleration and basically works like a rudimentary TurboBoost like in the newer Core i series. However, it's much less potent and usually gives only 100MHz or 200MHz increase when one core is idling around. However, most people won't get access to this small frequency increase as Windows seems to bounce threads from one core to the next hence no core is really idle. This bouncing thread business effectively ensures that IDA can never work. I've managed to force IDA on by setting process affinity via the Task Manager but it needs to be done every time the process is restarted and thus is a hassle.

So why not permanently use the IDA multiplier which in my case pushes the T9500's clock speed up to 2.7GHz. Sure the performance I get will be less than impressive but then again any free increase in performance no matter how small is still free. Plus even whilst running at 2.7GHz I'm still using a lower than stock voltage thanks to my undervolting with RMClock.

Thermal Paste and Shenanigans

2010-04-14T00:00:00.009+01:00

It all began with YS's iClip about 2 weeks ago. YS's MacBook Pro had some problem with his LCD where it goes all wonky at the bottom 3/4 and his solution to it was using a big paper clip to apply some pressure to the right side of the screen which seems to make it work again. I attempted to get to the root of the problem and spent like 4 hours that night dismantling his MBP to get at the LCD. Let's just say that any Apple laptop is a pain to dismantle as they have seriously too many screws. Same experience with my brother's old iBook. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I broke it. His iClip don't work no more so I suggested to YS to buy an LCD panel off eBay. Got one for £139.99. It arrived by FedEx on Wednesday and I got round to replacing his screen the moment we got back on Thursday midnight from Cornwall. Needless to say, it solved the problem. Hoho.

YS's iClip in action.

I then ran SIW and discovered that his CPU is running at gay temperatures like 98C causing it to throttle and I thought that the contact between his CPU and heatsink is wonky or something. So I re-dismantled it and replaced the original thermal paste that was on his CPU, GPU and chipset. I've previously read complaints that the thermal paste application on them MBP was seriously crappy coz they apply too much but actually seeing a whole glob of thermal paste AROUND the die made me realise how shitty it really is. No wonder MBPs are bloody hot and the fans spin up like a jet plane all the time. Anyway, replaced them with some cheap Akasa thermal paste and the temperature didn't improve much. Slept at 5a.m. that night.

The next day I did some googling and discovered that Bootcamp with Windows on the MBP have some issue with the fan not spinning up and remaining at 2000 RPM even when the CPU is cooking itself to death. Found a program which automatically increases the fan speed with temperature but it interferes with the Bootcamp service; only one of them can be on at the same time. In the end I provided YS with a manual work around: 2 batch files, one named highfan, the other lowfan which manually changes the fan speed. Couldn't spend more time finding a better solution as they had to leave for London.

That was case 1. Case 2: Hehn's BSODing Dell Inspiron 1420. He was complaining of some BSODing and I managed to catch one which was not a BSOD from windows, rather it seemed to be a BSOD from the BIOS which said something along the lines of memory parity error so my first suspect was his RAM suddenly died. So I did a memory test on both of his RAM sticks separately but couldn't find problem. The next night I ran SIW on his laptop and discovered that his CPU was idling at 60C which is a huge contrast to my laptop's CPU which was idling at 30C and 100% load at 60C. So, yet again I had thermal paste on my hands so I thought why not replace the CPU's thermal paste and I googled for the 1420 Service Manual. One thing I love about Dell is that they provide a service manual for all their models which details how to dismantle your computer into nothing. I also love the 1420 coz the CPU heatsink module is literally under 2 screws under the computer. Usually you had to dismantle the entire thing to get at the CPU. Back to Hehn's laptop, I opened up the panel and removed the heatsink and when I took it out a SPONGE of dust was stuck on the CPU. NO WONDER IT WAS OVERHEATING. 3 years of dust literally jammed itself into a sponge blocking all airflow thus rendering the heatsink useless. So, whipped up my hoover and hoovered it's ass off. The thermal paste on this one was completely hardened and dry, probably contributed to the high temperature as well. Did the normal procedure of cleaning the heatsink and CPU with 99.9% isopropyl alcohol and squirting some thermal paste on and slapped the heatsink back on. Turn it on, immediately the CPU was idling at 40C ish. I then gave Hehn's laptop the undervolting treatment with RMClock and voila 30C idle temperature. Mission accomplished.

Case number 3. Well, there wasn't actually a problem with my laptop, the Dell Inspiron 1520 but then after replacing the thermal paste on two laptops I was addicted to replacing thermal paste and gave my own laptop its own treatment. Well, I actually purchased a used CPU off eBay, the T9300 to replace my own and replace I did. And thermal paste went on there of course. Anyone needing to buy a Core 2 Duo T7300? Drop a comment please.

Merom and Penryn.

Case number 4. So, JS's Compaq 311c's GPU seemed to idle at 80C all the time and one day it started even turning itself off so something was wrong. JS bought some Arctic Silver 5 to replace his original thermal compound and I helped dismantle the whole thing to replace it. The only problem was, THERE WAS NO THERMAL PASTE/PADS ON IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. NO WONDER IT WAS OVERHEATING. To cut a long story short, read details here. I've posted it up in the MyHPMini forums and couldn't be bothered to retype it here.

Working on JS's 311c.

The MISSING thermal pads.

Case 5. I bought a new Dell Inspiron 11z which CPU seems to idle at 42C so I thought hey why not replace the thermal paste with some Arctic Silver 5. I did and the temperature remained the same which is a bummer. =.= I thought the CULVs are supposed to be low powered so why is it idling at a higher temperature than my T9300? Weird. Oh well.

The heatsink assembly in the 11z.

So, need a thermal paste replacin' anyone?

Cornwall: Playing Host & Setback in Soton

2010-04-06T11:57:00.001+01:00

So in my 3rd year in Southampton I finally had the chance to play host and have my place as the base for a trip. Hehn, Audrey, YS and Poh Shen arrived at the Southampton Airport Parkway Railway Station at about 1800 and I got them and brought them back to my place. We cooked some Beef Rendang, Chicken Curry, Chicken Satay and Nasi Lemak and caught up on old times.

So the next morning we all woke up at 0630 and got ready. Our pre-ordered taxi came at 0730 to bring us to Millbrook, a part of Southampton I've never been before to collect our car from Sixt. To cut a long story short, they did not accept our Malaysian Driving License without an International Driving Permit which you can apply for from the JPJ which will be valid for a year for RM150. Anyway, we then had to take a taxi to Southampton Airport coz that's the highest concentration of car rental companies, the airport. After speaking to all 4 car companies there, we faced two problems: firstly, Hertz don't rent cars to anyone below the age of 23, and the other 3 did not have cars available. Europcar promised us a car at 1130 so we waited until 11 and then they tell us they won't be able to get cars in. Bummer. In the end, we decided to postpone the trip by one day and managed to rent a medium-sized car for the next day from Avis.

Back to my house it was for a lazy day of sleeping and eating.

Photos:
2010-03-29&30 (Stranded in Soton)

The Best Shot I've Ever Taken

2010-04-02T22:13:00.009+01:00

This must be THE MOST philosophical photo I've ever taken. Srsly. This ain't no collage. Take a moment or two to ponder upon what you see.

What do you see?

P.S. Photos and blog of the 3+2 0601PE1 Cornwall trip shall be up soon.

Capitalism: A Discussion

2010-03-06T16:18:00.003Z

(15:04) Tan Ming Han:
whatu[
(15:04) Leb:
nani
(15:04) Tan Ming Han:
WHATUP
well
saw the vid
(15:10) Leb:
AND
(15:11) Tan Ming Han:
nothing
everybody looks good
(15:11) Leb:
touteimou
(15:23) Tan Ming Han:
you misspelled private video?
PRITAVE video
(15:24) Leb:
PRIT"AVE
(15:26) Leb:
just watched micheal moore's capitalism
CAPITALISM SUX
(15:27) Tan Ming Han:
...
wtf
(15:27) Leb:
what
(15:28) Tan Ming Han:
capitalism ROCKS
(15:29) Leb:
well U SUCK then
(15:29) Tan Ming Han:
what system do you want then
(15:29) Leb:
explain to me why should ppl in banks and stock exchanges who play around with money should earn millions
(15:30) Leb:
whereas ppl who grow our food and shit go broke
(15:30) Tan Ming Han:
risk and return yo
=.=
ever heard of it
(15:30) Leb:
u risk a bunch of numbers
for more numbers
(15:30) Tan Ming Han:
well
just because its digital doesnt make it less real
its still risk
(15:31) Leb:
no different from a casino =.=
(15:31) Tan Ming Han:
farmers dont risk anything by going their crop
yes
exactly
well
not really lah
more economic value than a casino
well
(15:32) Tan Ming Han:
communism is well and live in north korea....
they even started giving out food rations recently i believe
(15:32) Leb:
well, communism is flawed
when it is turned into a one man worship
(15:33) Leb:
which is whats happening in NK
socialism
(15:33) Tan Ming Han:
hahahh
thats no... sense of competition
no drive
(15:34) Tan Ming Han:
we'd all be stuck in the dark ages if it wasnt for capitalism
(15:34) Leb:
by we you mean the top 10% luckiest ppl in the world
the other 90% ARE in the dark ages
or worse
(15:35) Leb:
stone age
(15:35) Tan Ming Han:
well
some countries
the ones which arent capitalist by nature
hahahah
(15:36) Tan Ming Han:
the ones which embraced it turned out fine...
US, UK
heck japan
some of the people in these countries may be suffering a little
but at least they have TV
and electricity
and water through pipes
(15:41) Leb:
yes i agree that competition and drive is essential
but what capitalism is focused on is on maximising profits
without factoring no consequences
environmental, health, moral
its just numbers make bigger numbers
(15:42) Leb:
thats where it fails
maximise profits at someone elses downfall
(15:44) Tan Ming Han:
this world is unfortunately mostly a zero sum game
you cant maximise something with lowering something else
(15:44) Leb:
well
dont maximise profits
(15:44) Tan Ming Han:
then people wont push themselves
if they have no money to chase after
(15:45) Leb:
im not saying dont profit
profit
but not at the expense of others
(15:45) Tan Ming Han:
well im not sure how that's really gonna work...
(15:46) Tan Ming Han:
+ i dont know much about socialism anyway
(15:46) Leb:
its not coz 99.9% of all people are selfish
(15:47) Leb:
so due to the greed of 99.9%, they go with capitalism in hopes to be in the 0.1% who rips the rest of the world off
and one day everything will collapse on itself
(15:47) Tan Ming Han:
well
we'll see how it goes
doubt the world will explode soon
(15:47) Leb:
the old, it aint my problem, its my children's problem answer =.=
(15:48) Tan Ming Han:
i do my best to provide for my children
and the best way for that is maximising profits
(15:48) Leb:
in a corrupt system that might backfire against you anytime
(15:49) Tan Ming Han:
not really.....
as long as i have money my children will be well-fed
and educated
only after creating enough wealth for my kin
will i seek to help others
be it environmental
poverty
etc
whatever
(15:50) Tan Ming Han:
you cant eat righteousness
you cant buy diapers with it either
hahah
(15:50) Leb:
so u eat other people
and shit on their faces
(15:51) Tan Ming Han:
whats to stop them from eating me and shitting on my face?
if they work harder than me
they can
(15:52) Leb:
or by being lazy and corrupt
and exploiting loopholes in the system
(15:52) Tan Ming Han:
well....
(15:53) Tan Ming Han:
i dunno
how do you define corrupt in this sense
(15:54) Leb:
by making a decision free from all morality
like shitting on everyones faces
just to earn a few bucks
(15:54) Tan Ming Han:
oh cmon morality is ambiguous
(15:55) Tan Ming Han:
what if i use the few bucks to save lives?
will it be bad then?
if you take away capitalism
people wont be able to make the few bucks
whether to save lives or whatever they use it for
(15:56) Leb:
how many ppl takes those bucks and do good
instead of putting it in their pockets
(15:56) Tan Ming Han:
but yeah thats what im saying
you remove that choice from them
if you remove capitalism
(15:57) Tan Ming Han:
you remove people's ability to do good
with what money they have left over
(15:58) Leb:
so exploit alot of ppl, get 100M, then 99M goes into pocket and 1 M goes into helping a few ppl
(15:59) Tan Ming Han:
wlel
that 99M i'm sure he doesnt just put it in the bank
it serves an economic purpose too
he spends it
and by spending it
the wealth gets spread
(16:00) Tan Ming Han:
and yeah maybe the 1M would do better
taking 100M from a bunch of ruddy redneck farmers
and using 1M to help some kids at africa
why not
(16:03) Leb:
hrm
(16:04) Leb:
if we take communism for example where 1M ppl gets like 1000 to spend
thats 1 billion of money movement
(16:05) Leb:
compared to 1 dude who has 1 billion
and spends it on stuff that only profits him
(16:06) Tan Ming Han:
1 dude with 1 billion will surely have 1 billion of money movement too
(16:07) Tan Ming Han:
he buys clothes
and the money goes to the store owner
(16:07) Leb:
from LV
(16:07) Tan Ming Han:
the seamstress
the factory
the janitor
the janitor's kids
(16:07) Leb:
who is another billionaire
(16:07) Tan Ming Han:
billionaires dont just pay each other... they have costs on their business too
and money gets filtered down
(16:16) Leb:
this will get nowhere
BLOGGIT

Ng Kuok Shern has been added to the conversation.

(16:17) Tan Ming Han:
lets have a group discussion
purely academic
thoroughly researched
with full citations and references
(16:18) Leb:
CITATIONS?
(16:18) Tan Ming Han:
yes
(16:19) Tan Ming Han:
well, no
i was just kidding
(16:19) Ng Kuok Shern:
lol im pretty tickled
because leb somehow i just knew you'd be against capitalism
(16:20) Ng Kuok Shern:
it also helped that i know ming han is for, for sure
judging by the career path he's passionately trying to take
me, i believe in star wars
(16:20) Tan Ming Han:
i am un-dignified by that statement, sir
(16:20) Ng Kuok Shern:
where money doesny exist
(16:20) Tan Ming Han:
dude star wars has money
look at han solo
(16:20) Ng Kuok Shern:
okay as it turns out
(16:20) Tan Ming Han:
he's neck-deep in debt
like america
(16:20) Ng Kuok Shern:
i have to run now
buying birthday present for another dude whose my suitemate and whose birthday is tmrw
(16:21) Ng Kuok Shern:
TALK LATER
(16:21) Tan Ming Han:
what
gay
when
LETS SET ADATE
(16:21) Ng Kuok Shern:
i think ill be out the whole day
there's a muse concert sometime later on
so uh
it'll have to be
your sunday afternoon?
(16:21) Tan Ming Han:
you're going to a muse concert
BIG NEWS
(16:21) Ng Kuok Shern:
YES NO TIME MUST RUN
NOT WILLINGLY
BYE
(16:21) Tan Ming Han:
MUSE IS AWESOME
bye
(16:21) Ng Kuok Shern:
LEB I LOVE YOU

Ng Kuok Shern has left the conversation.

(16:22) Tan Ming Han:
that was a short discussion
(16:22) Leb:
=.=
THAT WAS A DISCUSSION?
(16:22) Tan Ming Han:
yes
we decided on something
starwars = cool
(16:23) Leb:
HOHO

More Food.

2010-03-01T17:32:00.001Z

So, more food.

First siew yok attempt: Phail. Skin wasn't crispy.

Having chicken rice with siew yok, salad, cucumber.

Voila chicken rice.

First fish and chips in months. Good stuff.

Most successful egg tart attempt ever. But looks still phail. Tasted awesome though thanks to the ready puff pastry sheets.

Roast chicken. Looks mutilated coz we wanted it to cook faster.

Two satisfied people.

Voila our Saturday roast meal.

Mis-sent Letter -> Google -> Facebook

2010-02-26T10:33:00.004Z

A few days ago the postman dropped a letter from Taiwan in through our letter door addressed to some random dude we didn't know. We didn't know what to do with it so we left it on the table and agreed to pass it to the postman or something. Then on Friday JS suggested we google for the postcode which Albert and I have already done so I decided to google for the recipient name instead. And lo and behold, the 2nd entry was the exact name on facebook. Viewing his profile page which stated that his location is in Southampton confirmed that he is in fact the dude whose letter we received coz the odds of two chinese person with the same name in the same place in a foreign country should be quite slim. So I dropped him a facebook message and he replied and confirmed that he lives up the road and added me as a facebook friend.

The power of the internet. What a wonderful/scary tool.

CNY 2010

2010-02-23T17:31:00.008Z

On the first day of CNY, we went to the Singsoc CNY Dinner which was rather disappointing as we spent nearly 4 hours eating whereby 3.5 hours of that were spent waiting for the food. Food wasn't particularly good at all. Oh well.

On the second day of CNY, we had our own steamboat and people who were there include Albert, Firmin, Jun Sheng, Gabriel, Yves, Micheal, Stephan and I. We had 2 packs of beef slices, 2 packs of pork slices, 1 kg of frozen tiger prawns, 2 bags of fishballs, 1 pack of sotong balls, 1 pack of those fish balls shaped like a straw with holes in them and a brown stripe outsite it however you call them, 1 entire chinese cabbage and one whole radish. This dinner trumps the previous one hands down and costed only £70 pounds for the lot of us. Albert belanja-ed.

The menu.

Complementary started since we had to wait more than 1 hour for the first dish to arrive.

Didn't get to try the siew yok. Sad.

Roast/Fried Chicken.

Kailan with some fishcake stuff.

Fatty pork.

Lamb. Eww.

Kangkung.

Lousy dumplings.

The soup which came after all the above dishes.

Tofu. Good stuff.

Fish. Meh.

Red bean soup dessert.

Steamboat ingredients.

The clear soup for Albert who can't take spicy stuff. Radish inside.

The Szechuan soup base for the rest of us.

Lotsa people.

A satisfied Yves.

Queuing for food.

Ich bin back

2010-02-05T18:20:00.001Z

So after a hiatus of 1 month coz of exams and the fact that I have lost the drive to post up stuff that no one reads anyway, I have returned. I'll start with random pics of food I've eaten the past 2 months coz, no one cares anyway. So stay tuned for more postings that may or may not come within the next month or two. Toodles.

Frozen roti canai with chicken kurma and loads of cherry tomatoes and cucumber. That was da bomb.

In the same week, had fush n chups with the same salad combo. Salad accompanied by Albert's Japanese sesame seed salad dressing.

This was the last meal I had before the winter holiday so I was just trying to finish all the leftover food I had in the fridge and voila, tomyum pasta soup with dumplings, chinese cabbage and tofu. Not very tasty.

Had leftover potatoes from our weekend cooking session about 2 weeks ago and decided to make my own roast potatoes. Also experimented with frying mushrooms the correct way and not throwing everything into a big pan and stir. Cooked mushrooms with balsamic vinegar. Eventhough I don't like any form of vinegar at all, after cooking, the balsamic vinegar actually gives the mushrooms a rather sweet tinge which is awesome. Accompanied by some teriyaki pork chop.

Had some bruschetta-esque stuff last week as an appetizer. Decided to go Italian to celebrate the end of exams.

Main course was prawn spinach risotto. Followed this recipe as much as I could and the rest is as Gabriel like to say: 'play by ear'.

Day after decided to have some assam laksa. Unfortunately, I realised that my mom gave me laksa noodles but no assam laksa paste at all. =.= Luckily I managed to dig out two packs of laksa lemak packets from last year's spice stock and all is saved. The difference between laksa lemak and assam laksa is that assam laksa does not have that sour assam smell that Albert oh-so-hates. Only Malaysians seems to favour the strong sour smell of assam laksa.

The Scene Out My Window at Midnight

2010-01-06T00:38:00.003Z

There seems to be this warm yellowish glow from the sky lighting up the snow. Wonder where that came from. Anyway, forecasted to continue snowing throughout the night. Fresh snow is always pretty, until it turns into sludge beneath everyone's feet.

Random Conversation with Shern

2010-01-03T11:02:00.002Z

[08:47] 황학성: touteimou
[10:56] dar'manda *help: 豆特摩
[10:56] 황학성: uhhuh
[10:56] 황학성: is that touteimou in kanji
[10:56] 황학성: are you sure
[10:56] 황학성: or are u pulling my arm
[11:01] dar'manda *help: OFＣＯＵＲＳＥNOTＬＡ
[11:01] 황학성: tofu special grind
[11:01] 황학성: hoho
[11:01] dar'manda *help: i was just matching random chars to it
[11:01] 황학성: new tofu
[11:01] dar'manda *help: oh but wow it came out nicely translate
[11:01] dar'manda *help: tofu special grind eh
[11:01] dar'manda *help: awesome
[11:01] 황학성: awesome
[11:01] dar'manda *help: lets use that from now on
[11:01] 황학성: go sell it
[11:01] 황학성: =.=
[11:01] 황학성: TOFU SPECIAL GRIND

twenty-ten

2010-01-02T23:22:00.002Z

Yet another year has passed. The London fireworks of 2009 still seems fresh in my head. Hehn, his sister, JW, JT, JT's friend Lynnie, Ho Meng, Ji Hang and Kai Chi were who went to the fireworks this year with me, but somehow the atmosphere of this year's countdown weren't as exciting as last year. Regardless, it snowed in the first few minutes of 2010 for, a few minutes, which some people think it is some conspiracy by the Mayor of London by seeding clouds as it was a tad too coincidental.

Anyway, rewatched Avatar in IMAX 3D on New Year's Day with JW, JT, JT's bro, Hehn, Hehn's sis, Hehn's mom, Ho Meng, Kai Chi and Ji Hang. The screen wasn't as big as I remembered from the IMAX theater in Melbourne, and the 3D glasses was crap compared to the RealD 3D one. Apparently the IMAX glasses are linearly polarised and the RealD 3D ones are circularly polarised, which means that if you tilt your head in an IMAX theater, the image for the other eye will start leaking in whereas in a RealD 3D theater, you can watch it with your head tilted and it'll still work. Regardless, the IMAX version was still as impressive the 2nd time around. High-Def on a big screen. Can't fault that.

JW and JT invited me over to Brian's place for lunch today. Had rainbow trout. Then went back to Hehn's and did my report due two days. Bus from Victoria at 2000, arrived at 2210. Unpacked half my stuff and chilled.

2009-12-31 (New Year's Eve Dinner) [HD]
2009-12-31 (New Year's Countdown) Video 1 [HD]
2009-12-31 (New Year's Countdown) Video 2 [HD]
2009-12-31 (New Year's Countdown) Video 3 [HD]
2009-12-31 (New Year's Countdown) Video 4 [HD]
2010-01-01 (New Year's Celebration) Video 1 [HD]
2010-01-01 (New Year's Celebration) Video 2 [HD]
2010-01-01 (New Year's Celebration) Video 3 [HD]

London Again

2009-12-30T00:52:00.003Z

So I'm back in London for the umpteenth time, this time to bring Ji Hang around. Uncle dropped me off at Letchworth at 1210 before he and my parents went on to continue their after Christmas shopping eventhough their bags are already bulging. Arrived in London KGX at 1319, met up with Ji Hang there before I brought him to Hehn's place to stay over.

At Nigel's Poh Shen and Jun are the only people around so we suddenly decided to go watch Avatar 3D at Fulham Broadway's Vue at 1600. Interestingly, the cinema we went to is free seating, and I mistakenly bought the adult ticket rather than the student VIP ticket which entitles us to much better seats. The VIP seats are basically the back half of the cinema. Oh well, my first time in a cinema in the UK. Avatar is just plain awesome. The best cinematic experience I've ever experienced ever in visual terms. Sure Ji Hang said that the story is just a Pocahontas rip-off, but I have never watched Pocahontas and didn't know it was a rip-off until Ji Hang mentioned it so I thought the story was quite good. But what really blew me away was the detail of the world of Pandora, all the plants and animals are just so surreal.

However, one thing I have to say is that polarised 3D just don't cut it coz it causes disorientation in the same way that you get disoriented the first time you put on a new pair of glasses. Maybe we will eventually get used to it, but how many 3D movies do you have to watch to achieve it?

Anyway, after the movie I brought Ji Hang straight to Hann's place where he cooked claypot chicken rice for dinner for 13 people. Respect. After dinner, talked about cameras for like 3 hours and another hour spent deciding where to bring people around tomorrow. Then at 2345, we realised that it was quite late and the last tube might have left. Luckily, there still was tube and we managed to get back to Hehn's.

So I now sit here in Hehn's makeshift room slightly emo as the past 2 weeks was the first time in 3 years that I travelled with my family for holiday. Plus staying at my uncle's place where you get food cooked for you and all that, feels like home, and now student life begins again, cooking, responsibilities and all that. Oh well, life goes on as always. Sigh.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T22:36:00.004Z

The christmas table.

Steaming hot food.

Scrumptious. Goose; gammon steak; Brussel sprouts; roasted potatoes, parsnips and carrots; and pigs in a blanket.

Does not look like anything but it tastes like Tiramisu.

My presents. A scarf, an electric toothbrush, body wash and spray (a repeat of 3 years ago) and an electric German salt/pepper grinder.

The End of The Ordeal

2009-12-22T00:19:00.004Z

All I can say is finally we are back. We left our apartment at 0930 for the Metro to take to Gare du Midi and waited about more than 20 minutes for a tram as there has been disruptions due to the snow. At the Gare du Midi there were a coupla delayed trains here and there and still loads of people at the international travel center probably asking about their travel options back to London.

Once at the airport, we went straight to the American Airlines check-in counter and found out a queue so long it literally spanned half the airport around a corner. It took us 2 hours of queuing to reach the front of the queue by which time we were already supposed to have taken off but due to the amount of passengers, they had to delay the flight. Mind you, American Airlines seems to be the only one with the long queue and only a handful of counters. Other airlines did not have this crazy queue.

Once checked-in, we waited about an hour before we boarded the plane, and once boarded the plane, it took us another hour before they told us that they have closed the airplane door and loaded all the luggages, another half hour to tell us that airport control has allowed us to fly but are now stopped by Heathrow as they could not allocate a landing slot for us, and yet another hour before Heathrow said we are good to go.

Queuing to check-in.

White Airport. Looks pretty, but you really do not want to be seeing this sight at all.

So finally we landed in Heathrow, but the ordeal ain't over. We had to take the train back to my uncle's place, so we took the tube to King's Cross and there were signs of trains being delayed with boards having no platform numbers eventhough we were due to depart already as the train hasn't even arrived yet. Once the platform was announced on the station staff's walkie-talkie everyone rushed off to the platform and boarded the train which left in about 3 minutes after arriving.

Once we arrived at Arlesey, it was snowing really really heavily and we had to haul our luggage in the heavy snow as pulling the luggage across the snow will just result in jammed wheels packed with snow as well as a whole lot of snow in front of your bag as you are just scooping up snow with your bag. The road was also so slippery that the car wheels were free-spinning a coupla times.

My uncle told us of his colleague who works in Luton, stays in Luton, left work at 1700 just minutes later than my uncle, got stuck in a gridlock, dumped his car, walked back home and arrived at 2300. Oh well, thank god we've arrived.

Staying at the Marriott Thanks to Eurostar.

2009-12-20T19:50:00.008Z

No, I'm not being compensated to stay at the Marriott due to the Eurostar cancellations. The latest news on their site is that they will compensate for out-of-pocket expenses but I'm not holding my breath on that.

As I've mentioned in my previous post, my Eurostar train to London from Brussels have been cancelled, therefore we had to find another place to stay, and there were 3 hotels we located nearby our apartment: Marriott, Ibis and Novotel. We checked out all 3, Ibis only offers 2 person rooms at the price of EUR74 which means we need to get 3 rooms and brings the price up to EUR222: Novotel offers 2 person rooms but allows an extra bed at no extra charge for EUR95; and Marriott offers the same set up as Novotel at EUR93, hence which is the cheapest option you tell me.

Anyway, the Marriott is just across the street from our apartment, literally from our window we can see the entrance of the Marriott, so at 1050, we dropped our ApartmentApart keys into the mailbox and walked across the road to our 2 4-star standard rooms which is just awesome. Walked about nearby in the heavy snow and slushy roads for about an hour and got some food from the christmas market and all. We went to the Gare du Midi in attempt to get a claim on our cancelled ticket and had to get a number from the Travel Centre and there were like 200 people in front of us in the queue. Eventually after an hour we got to our turn and surprise surprise they referred us to a telephone number we had to call as we book our ticket from the UK site and therefore need to go to them to get our claim.

That is that, and all we can do now is hope that we can fly out of here by tomorrow as more than half of all flights out of Brussels are delayed or cancelled today due to the heavy snow.

The Marriott from our window.

The christmas market around le Grand Place.

The great migration. Nah not really, it's just hordes of tourists going to see a boy peeing on the street.

Not something you see everyday.

Stranded In Brussels

2009-12-19T22:50:00.001Z

Eurostar has confirmed that on account of the continuing severe weather conditions in northern France it will not be running any services tomorrow (Sunday 20 December 2009).
Following the disruption to its services over the last 24 hours, Eurostar does not want to cause its passengers any further disruption and will be conducting a programme of ‘test-trains’ tomorrow to better understand the problems that have been occurring.
We are committed to restoring our services as soon as possible but our key priority is the safety and comfort of our customers.
We are advising travellers to change their tickets for travel on a later date or have their tickets refunded.
We have confirmed that we will be offering travellers who suffered major delays on their train services last night £150 compensation per passenger in addition to a refund on their tickets and a free return ticket.
Any passengers who were scheduled to travel today can exchange their tickets for travel on a later date or have their tickets refunded.
We will provide a further update tomorrow on www.eurostar.com
All travellers will need to produce details of their booking reference/s to receive compensation.

We usually see in the news of people stranded in airports or train stations due to bad weather and go 'Thank god I ain't there!' I have an Eurostar train from Brussels to London tomorrow afternoon on Sunday, however, it seems that yesterday night there was a train failure in the Channel Tunnel for Eurostar trains. The Eurostar CEO has explained that it is due to the cold weather and the hot humid tunnels causing condensation in the electric bits of the train and hence causing a failure.

Due to this my family and I decided to book a flight back to London on Monday with American Airlines to London Heathrow and have to stay an extra night here in Brussels as flying tomorrow will be much too expensive. Will be staying at the Hotel Ibis Brussels Centre Ste Catherine tomorrow night.

Not exactly the best time to be spending in Europe at the moment as the temparature today was a gay -12 degrees Celcius. My fingers and toes were so painful from the cold I thought I was gonna get gangrene and had to amputate them. But thankfully I have all my phalanges intact, just some cold rash on my arms. Oh well, nothing like experiencing a travel disturbance to end a European trip.

Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch

2009-12-12T13:53:00.001Z

I bought a Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch about a month ago. Reviews about it were quite divided. Some liked it some hated it, especially the touch feature. How this tablet differs from the old Bamboo is the addition of a new touchpad which supports multi-touch gestures like those you get on the Macbooks and iPhones. Pinch to zoom or rotate or scroll when you use two fingers, that sort of thing. However, of course, this ain't no Apple and the touch feature is not as refined as those you get on the Mac and is rather unsmooth and laggy.

However, it is pretty handy to use, the multi-touch gesture I use most is of course, scrolling, but the zooming comes in pretty handy too. Anyway with the old driver it didn't support the rotate gesture in Windows 7, but a driver update (5.2.1-5) released recently fixed that issue.

I'll have to admit that I'm not using the pen feature much compared to my old tablet. Maybe it's because this tablet is bigger hence more of a hassle if used as a mouse replacement since I have to move much more. But then the best usage of pen right now for me is writing Chinese, Korean and Japanese as it works perfectly with Windows 7's IME. I must say that I am very impressed with the language features of Windows 7, and this tablet is an affordable way to make use of it.

Julie & Julia

2009-12-09T13:37:00.000Z

This is my favourite-est movie of this year. Seriously awesome. All the french cooking and Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, this movie is a light-hearted fun comedy drama about two women from two different times exploring french cooking. Based on two true stories, the movie alternates between Julia Child and Julie Powell.

Julia Child was credited as the woman who introduced french cuisine to America, and this movie explores her journey to become this woman. The second story is of Julie Powell who set a goal to cook all 546 recipe's in Julia Child's book in one year and to blog about her adventure.

How this movie really excites me compared to other biographical movies is the fact that Julie is actually real and actually did blog about her adventure and that you can see it right here. Other movies is usually of some long dead person or some famous persona whom you can never imagine can meet or whatever but with Julie, she just blogged, and got famous doing so and getting a movie made about her whilst at it. Some movies go to the trouble to create 'fake' websites and all to let fans get more back story and all that but this one, all the back story is real. Anyway it looks like Julie Powell did not particularly like the movie version of her and more specifically, her cat in this article she wrote. She still blogs today, link here.

Other than the two main characters, the other theme that attracted me was the FOOD. All the food looks so good I wonder why I didn't I learn to cook some french cuisine. I shall do it one day! But not Julie-style of course.

All in all, this is a movie filled with goals, self-discovery, trials, relationships and culinary pursuits. I heartily recommend it.

Swatch

2009-12-06T00:06:00.000Z

My super compass watch which guided me around the world battery died. I tried changing it myself but using a penknife trying to pry the back cover off for an hour is not a good idea at all.

So, what can a watchless guy do? Why, eBay some old watch of course. Found this dude who sells old Swatch watches. I emailed him and he said he got like 200 watches off some gentleman who retired to Italy. I was worried over one of his Automatic Swatch that the same problem would happen to my old Automatic Seiko where the spring stopped holding energy for more than a few minutes, but he was kind enough to offer a 1 month guarantee for full refund on it so I went ahead and bought it. There was also another watch which looked nice so I bought it as well under the pretense that it makes a really good birthday gift. =.=

Anyway, they arrived, I wore the Automatic for a week. The spring managed to keep energy for about 16 hours which is abit on the low side; but the deal killer was the fact that the watch goes fast a minute a day! A minute a day means 30 minutes a month which is just too much by ANY standards, not even Swiss. So yea, after a week I returned it and got my full refund. Awesome seller. So I now wear the Chrono.

1995 GENTS AUTO SWATCH WATCH "GOLDEN SIXIES" SAK115

1993 CHRONO SWATCH WATCH "ALABAMA" SCN105

The Automatic's movement.

The Second Long Overdue Food Post

2009-12-03T11:08:00.001Z

A continuation of my food posts. These aren't in chronological order coz I was too lazy to sort them out.

Minced pork, savoy cabbage, spinach, ikan bilis, seaweed and rice. Spray some tomato sauce on it and mix and voila awesome meal.

Korean-style tauge (meaning lots of sesame oil) garnished with coriander and minced pork with rice. Awesome.

Korean instant noodles with dumplings and broccoli garnished with coriander. Yes I put coriander into everything only coz I bought a big bunch of coriander for 50p.

Had leftover beef rendang, prawn sambal and chicken curry after the nasi lemak meal 2 months ago. Since no one wanted it I gladly took it. And in true Malaysian-fare had some Milo panas to go with it.
This is not an advert. The mug was just a convenient mug to use. Srsly.

Chicken Kiev from ASDA with salad. Japanese sesame salad sauce courtesy of Albert.

Had a pack of instant Rendang Tok which made 2 awesome meals. Rice, vege and papadam to go with it.
Did you know? You can microwave papadam? Quick, oil-free method. Just throw a few into the microwave for a minute until it looks 'popped'. Not AS crunchy but way healthier.
What's wrong with eating out of the rice cooker? One less to wash.

The Long Overdue Food Post

2009-11-29T11:06:00.006Z

So these are what I have been subsisting on the past two months. Well, the highlights that is. Other stuff like indomee or cheese baked pasta is oh-so-common I forgot to take pictures of them. More to come.

We had Ma Po Tofu with minced beef as we couldn't find any minced pork. The tofu was undercooked thanks to Albert. =.=

Had steamboat one day with shitloads of tiger prawns. Yum. Also had some seafood balls and beef and pork slices. And chinese cabbage.

Breaded Southen Fried Chicken from ASDA with stir-fry leeks and carrots. And miso soup in that cup which did not influence me in any way whatsoever in my summer activities. Really.

Pineapple fried rice with Southern Fried Breaded Chicken from ASDA. Initially forgotten to put pineapple so added them a day after.

The same pineapple fried rice with loads of savoy cabbage. Savoy cabbage taste like horsefeed.

Downloading Flash Videos From Flash Sites

2009-11-26T18:39:00.012Z

So you know how to download Youtube videos. Everyone knows that. You go to C:\Users\[your windows user name]\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[some random characters].default\Cache and you sort by time and you pick the latest biggest file you come across and rename and change the extension to .flv yes? That's assuming you're using Firefox and Windows Vista and above of course. Also, you need to enable Show hidden files, folders, and drives in your Folder Options/View in the Control Panel.

Yes there is those Youtube Downloader Add-Ons and stuff but those are for noobs. =.=

But how do you copy flash videos generated within flash sites? Firstly, there is no tool that I can find which downloads videos played within flash sites. All the tools that are available downloads flash videos embedded within a site like Youtube. Secondly, they do not appear in your browser's cache at all. They appear in your Windows Temp Folder: C:\Users\[your windows user name]\AppData\Local\Temp and you follow the same as above, sort by time and pick the latest biggest file.

Try it! And you will fail coz apparently whilst you still have the page open the flash program still holds writing privileges to the file and does not allow you to rename/copy/move the file at all. So you try closing the flash program and copy again only the file is now gone! It seems that it clears all cache upon exit so you can't copy it.

So now you get really smart and you try killing Firefox to let the flash program die a sudden death so it wouldn't know what hit it and hence couldn't delete all the cache files before exiting, only it didn't work. =.= Must be that the Adobe Flash Player is a separate entity that just exits when Firefox dies.

So what now? I tried using Robocopy with the /B option which supposedly disregards any file privileges but that don't work.

Some Googling on 'how to copy opened files' landed me on this page which poses a method to backup registry files, and as you know, registry files are like the heart and soul of Windows and hence always in access. Anyway, the site has a zip file of the copywithvss.cmd script written by Adi Oltean which basically lets you copy ANY opened files in Windows using Microsoft's VShadow tool.

Now, to get back to the matter on hand, which is to 'obtain' flash videos from flash sites, what you need to do, is to copy both these files(copywithvss.cmd and vshadow.exe) that I have conveniently ripped off the earlier site into the C:\Users\[your windows user name]\AppData\Local\Temp folder where you've pinpointed the exact .tmp file (the latest and biggest) and open an command prompt in that folder (right-clicking whilst holding down Shift should get you that command) and enter:
copywithvss [random characters].tmp [movie title].flv
Of course replace [random characters] with the name of the .tmp file you've pinpointed and [movie title] with your intended title. Let it run, it takes about a minute or two and voila you'll get your .flv file in that same folder which you can copy elsewhere.

Now maybe you were wondering just what video was so awesome that warrants this much effort, well it's the new trailer from this site. Also, you can click on the link to see just what type of sites are flash sites.

Happy 'obtaining'.

EDIT: It seems that some flash sites stores flash movies in the browser's cache, or just don't store it on disk at all but completely cached in RAM. So if them method don't work, too bad. Figure it out and tell me.

Dropbox

2009-11-21T15:04:00.004Z

Ever tried sending files to your friends via MSN only to get disconnected and having to resend? Well, the future is Dropbox. With it you can share folders with friends and all you need to do is to throw files into the Dropbox folder on your computer and leave it. Come back the next day and your friend will see the exact same files you threw in. No need to send file by file, you can send a million files in a million folders and it'll all be synchronised.

Another good thing about Dropbox is that it's sorta like SVN without the hassle. You can undelete up to 30 days and even revert to old versions. This will be really helpful for your projects and stuff where you made a change in a file which u saved over. If it's on Dropbox all you need to do is to revert the file back to an earlier time.

Awesome no? Now please sign up via the link and get me more space! Bwahaha. The referrer and the referree both gets extra space so it's a win-win situation. Sign up!

https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTI4MTE1NzU5

How High Can You Hear?

2009-11-20T22:41:00.002Z

I was comparing between 320kpbs and 192kpbs MP3s and I realised that 192kpbs MP3s have frequencies above 18.5kHz cut off whereask 320kbps MP3s have up to 19.5kHz frequencies. So I got to thinking, can I actually hear those frequencies that 192kbps MP3s lack? I found this site:
http://www.noiseaddicts.com/2009/03/can-you-hear-this-hearing-test/

I could hear 17kHz clearly, 18kHz barely and 19kHz only if I turn the volume all the way up. That means 320kpbs MP3s are just a waste of space for me. What about you? How high can you hear?

Nottingham

2009-11-15T01:00:00.002Z

So after going to Nottingham the past two years for the Malaysian Games, this time round, I actually went outside of the university campus for the first time to visit the city. And boy was it dull. The city was no more interesting than, Southampton. I have to admit however, that it is miles bigger than our own city centre but still, it's just a city.

The Nottingham Malaysian Games this year wasn't as fun to me as compared to last years since the likes of Hehn and YS wasn't there. No Hehn no basketball match to care about; and probably Imperial lost due to Hehn not being there but who knows. Anyway, after two hours of looking for random people I know I got bored as I couldn't find any and decided to follow Wei Han to the food fair. He got Kai Yan to drop us there. Once there I phoned up Ji Hang and waited for him and had a bowl of laksa (which was utterly fail since it was served cold) before he came as I haven't taken breakfast hence was starving.

Once he came he bought £20 of food coupons to be entitled to the lucky draw (which he didn't bother going to anyway) which was seriously too much. We both bought a pack of Nasi Lemak Ayam which sucks and some satay which is overpriced. After eating, we went back to tapau food for dinner since we had so much coupons. We then went to say hi to CL and gang before I followed Ji Hang back to his room to drop off the food. Took the bus to the the city and walked towards the Nottingham Castle which we had to pay to go in. Not much to see in the castle, but met Kai Chi there. We then left the castle and lepaked at the city for awhile and headed back to the uni as Kai Chi had a bus to catch.

Got back to the uni and bade farewell to Kai Chi. Went to check out the sports hall, but the basketball game was still ongoing but since Hehn wasn't there it wasn't interesting to watch so we didn't bother staying for the closing ceremony and went back to Ji Hang's place for dinner, the Nasi Kerabu Ayaw we bought. It was phail as well coz it was too dry but oh well, it fills the gut. After dinner, just chilled in his room and just caught up on old times. Bunked in his room.

The next morning we chilled at his place till about 10 where we left for CL's. Ji Hang dropped me off and went about to buy his own groceries. Waited around at CL's until everyone was ready to go out for dim sum lunch. Honestly the dim sum is lacking compared to what I had in M'sia but oh well, I guess i should be happy to get any dim sum at all in the Yoo-Kay. After lunch we had an hour to kill before my train departs at the train station so we just lepaked in the city whilst walking towards the station. CL and co dropped me off at the station and I collected my tickets, hopped on the train, changed at Birmingham where I bought a Sub of the Day as my dinner whilst I waited for my next train and then arrived at Southmpton Airport at about 2130. And that is the end of my 3rd time at Nottingham.

Waiting for the opening ceremony to begin.

Phail Laksa.

Phail Nasi Lemak.

The infamous Robin Hood.

Nasi Kerabu.

Ji Hang's crib.

Dim Sum.

(500) Days of Summer

2009-11-05T21:09:00.008Z

The last movie along the lines of this that was this good was Definitely Maybe, and I seriously liked that show. Guess what? I seriously like this too. Just brilliant. Brilliant cast, brilliant soundtrack, brilliant non-linear story telling, brilliant story.

I actually got the soundtrack like a month ago and thus have listened to it quite a number of times. I'm not sure if listening to the soundtrack prior to watching movie was a good thing, because it kind of took off the 'new' feeling and all that but nevertheless, the selection of songs is awesome. Fits the scenes like a glove.

The main characters, well, Zooey Deschanel, who doesn't love her? The first time I've seen here was in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The movie was crap but what I remember vividly from it was the quirky-looking Trillian with vivid blue eyes. The next movie I saw her in was Yes Man which I watched last year and I loved her in that as well. In the soundtrack for Days of Summer there was a track titled 'Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want' which is originally sung by The Smiths but Zooey covered it under her She & Him indie band. Needless to say, I've checked out her She & Him album as well.

On to the main actor instead: Joseph Gordon-Levitt did a good job portraying Tom, your typical loser guy who has a loser job who suddenly meets an amazing chick. Tom is just your average guy who might be any of us and does normal things like second, third, quadruple guess what girls' actions means and all that; someone we could relate to. Anyway, he resembles Heath Ledger don't cha think? You can say he's Heath Ledger's younger brother and I would totally believe you. Seriously. I have to say I have never seen him in anything before. He did star in 10 Things I Hate About you (which coincidentally stars Heath Ledger as well) but I watched that long ago hence I don't remember anything from it other than the fact that Heath Ledger was in it.

So yea, awesome movie. Awesome bittersweet story. The ending nearly left me all emo and wailing in depression but the last scene, especially the last line, totally turned me 180 degrees. That was a great punch ending to a great movie.

I would give it my traditional thumbs up rating but I think my rating system is unreliable anyway, as I only usually review good stuff since shit stuff is not worth reviewing. Hence my rating is skewed to the higher ratings. But here you go anyway:
10 Thumbs Up.

P.S. Yes I haven't reviewed anything since what, Slumdog Millionaire or something at the beginning of the year? But this movie is so awesome I just had to review it.

Singsoc London Trip: Four Seasons

2009-11-02T20:18:00.001Z

After the Portobello Market we left to Trafalgar Square since Ay Wen has not been there before. They had some demonstration on getting troops out of Afghanistan. Walked over to Chinatown and then towards Piccadilly Circus where we (Kien Hei, Firmin and Michael left in my rogue group.) dropped Ay Wen and pointed her in the direction of Oxford Street.

The rest of us joined back up with the rest of the Singsoc gang who opted to watch Avenue Q. Avenue Q was quite entertaining. The jokes were not bad, but the story was meh.

After the musical we met up with Ay Wen and proceeded to Bayswater for the infamous Four Season, only that we arrived 40 minutes too early. Hence I showed them the way to the Malaysian Student Hall where there's a cafeteria that serves a few Malaysian food. Had a drink before we went back to the restaurant in time for our booking. I'll have to say. One of the best ducks I've ever tasted. Eventhough I've been there before once but I don't remember the duck being that good.

After dinner we bade farewell to Ay Wen and walked along Queensway until the bus came and back to Southampton we went.

Kailan.

Char siew siew yok.

THE duck.

Gabriel is grossed out by I don't know what.

Abstract Gabriel.

London: Portobello Market

2009-10-31T20:24:00.001Z

I was thinking that the Borough Market is at Notting Hill Gate. Only it wasn't. What was at Notting Hill was the Portobello Market. But still, it was a market. And we walked down almost the entire stretch. The span of the market was quite a distance, much longer that I would have expected. Bought some burek over there. Quite nice, only bad thing is that it was cold.

Frozen expressions.

Periscope.

Ancient map.

Signs.

The granddaddy of all cameras.

Artichokes

Mushrooms & Asparagus.

Burek. Tastes like pizza on puff pastry.

Paella.

Singsoc London Trip: DLR Nightmare

2009-10-29T18:50:00.000Z

After Subway we left off the Tower Gateway DLR station to take get to the Royal Observatory where the Prime Meridian lies. However, what happened was: We got off at Limehouse wanting to change to the Lewisham train, however, the board did not show any train bound for Lewisham, so we quickly got back on the next train and got off at Poplar. Then at Poplar we saw a notice saying all Stratford - Lewisham trains for that weekend are halted and we are to take the replacement bus from Westferry. So we took the DLR to Westferry and followed some questionable signs to a giant questionable yellow cone which is supposedly the replacement bus stop. Waited there for 20 minutes before a station staff came and said there wasn't any bus from here and we have to take a bus from Blackwall instead. So we took the DLR to Blackwall and we asked the station staff how do we get to Cutty Sark and he told us we have to take a bus to somewhere, walk a coupla minutes to another bus stop and then take yet another bus. 2 hours of trying to get there, and we gave up. If you actually read all of that, I'm sorry for you.

Anyway, we then took the DLR back to Bank and switched to the Central Line. At that point our group became even smaller and my rogue tour group only have 5 members. Due to the train being very packed we decided to walk to St Paul's Cathedral instead. Took photos outside the cathedral. Didn't go in as it wasn't free. After that we went back to take the Tube to Notting Hill Gate.

St Paul's Cathedral.

Spot the pigeon.

Out of Afghanistan.

Demonstration at Trafalgar Square.

Singsoc London Trip: A Random Encounter

2009-10-26T19:30:00.007Z

It was the Annual Singsoc London Trip last Saturday which is organised to give the freshers a chance to visit London, and eventhough I've been there millions of times I went along anyway just to chill out and walk about. So the e-mail asked us to meet at the Highfield Interchange at 0600, and I was there at 0600 sharp. I cannot believe I fell for the same trick so many times. Turns out we only left at 0625 true to Malaysian fashion.

Arrived at Westminster at about 8-ish and tagged along for a coupla minutes with the entire group whilst I got a few people to join me to sightsee other stuff rather than the usual stuff that everyone sees the first time they come to London. I managed to convince 7 people to join my rogue tour group to see the Prime Meridian at Greenwich.

When we were about to break off from the group it was then I saw my ex-colleague from my 2 month internship stint walking past. And I was stunned for like a coupla seconds coz all the horrible memories of my internship just flashed through my mind. Nah just joking, but I was genuinely bamboozled to see my ex-colleague from Malaysia, walking past on the street opposite the British Parliament, at 8 on a rainy Saturday morning in London. What are the odds of that? Seriously.

So yea, after recovering from the shock, I ran back to catch her and gave her the same shock she gave me. Since she was sightseeing alone I got her to join in with my rogue tour group as well and we then broke off from the group and took the tube to Tower Hill where we needed to change to the Tower Gateway DLR station. However, since we were there and quite a number of them have not seen Tower bridge and the Tower of London I brought them to see them. We then stopped by Subway for some breakfast.

~~Kim Jong Il Krusty the Clown~~ Ellis by the Thames.

Tower Bridge, with a genuine London sky backdrop.

One of Gabriel's endless poses. Natural born camwhorer.

Michael emo over having to eat Subway for breakfast.

Ninite

2009-10-25T09:52:00.003Z

Now I can reinstall Windows EVEN FASTER. Check out Ninite. It lets you pick a bunch of frequently used software and installs them in bulk which really saves alot of time. Best part is it collects the most updated installers which is the most time eating part everytime I do a reinstall: to check if the software installers I have are up to date.

16 - 25 Railcard

2009-10-22T20:47:00.002+01:00

For those who needs to renew their Railcard before the end of this year, buy your railcard online for a 10% discount! Mine arrived in the mail on the 2nd working day after I ordered it. Awesome.

http://www.16-25railcard.co.uk/online

Melaka Day 1: Satay Celup

2009-10-17T22:10:00.000+01:00

For dinner, Don brought us to Capitol Satay Celup, supposedly the best satay celup in town. However, the queue was so long it seemed that we wouldn't be eating for at least another hour if we waited so after 10 minutes of queuing we left and went for Ban Lee Siang instead, supposedly also very good. Since Ban Lee Siang was 2 shoplots, the place was big enough to accommodate quite a number of people and we didn't need to queue up. Food was awesome, can't really go wrong with food cooked in satay sauce. Check out the videos for more.

JW introduces the many varieties of food and MH describes the situation.

JW burns his tongue and comments on the food.

The introduction of the Lok Lok Monster after giving their satay count.

Melaka Day 1: Maritime

2009-10-15T22:12:00.000+01:00

We bring you the continuation of Two Thin's Farcical Melaka Tour, this time at the Melaka Maritime Museum.

Part 1 of the tour of the Maritime Museum in Melaka by Two Thin.
Of Parameswara, Professor Charles Xaviar the Blackbird, and the 6 Leprechauns of Ancient Narnia.

Part 2 of the tour of the Maritime Museum in Melaka by Two Thin.

Melaka Day 1: Tau Foo Fah

2009-10-14T19:53:00.000+01:00

So allow be to continue blogging about Melaka 3 months after the Melaka Trip:
After the Nyonya meal Don brought us to have some tau foo fah which was quite unique coz the soup was a super strong ginger soup that obliterates anybody's throat the moment you finish one bowl. If you can that is.

Tau Foo Fah Part 1.

Tau Foo Fah Part 2.
Everyday is WK's birthday.
Shaking the car.

Two Thin sings, talks about germ nukes, and introduces a revolutionary new dance move.

Nasi Lemak at 114's

2009-10-11T10:48:00.008+01:00

Cooked nasi lemak with chicken curry, beef rendang and prawn sambal. After dinner, crashed every room in the house seeking entertainment.

Malaysian fare.

Everyone enjoying the food. Or so they claim.

Suspicious piano player.

Albert playing beyond the speed of my camera.

A tour of JS's room.

Videos:

2009-10-10 (Nasi Lemak at 114's) 1

2009-10-10 (Nasi Lemak at 114's) 2

2009-10-10 (Nasi Lemak at 114's) 3

Filmgarmott on PIFF

2009-10-10T11:07:00.004+01:00

Follow my brother on the Pusan International Film Festival where the all 15 of 15Malaysia shorts will be shown.

http://filmgarmott.blogspot.com/

Bak Kut Teh Mooncake

2009-10-07T09:34:00.003+01:00

No, not a bak ket teh flavoured mooncake. That would be gross. These are the first few photos I took after I got back to jolly ol' dull Southampton.

Bak Kut Teh. First meal cooked in Southampton after arriving.

My room. Rearranged my furniture slightly to improve feng shui. Hoho. Not perfect though.

The other side of my room.

Mooncake all the way from Hong Kong courtesy of Firmin. Awesome.

YS-Monstrosity

2009-09-29T19:49:00.002+01:00

So, I touched down at Heathrow at about 0645, however there was another plane at the gate so we waited for about 20 minutes for the plane to move. Long queue at immigration but I managed to get out about 0803 which good timing. I got Hehn to help me with my immensely heavy luggage as I would not be able to carry all my luggages myself. Dropped off my luggage a Hehn's new place, repacked my stuff to bring over to YS's new place where I will spend the night. And off I go to YS's.

Once arrived, left my luggage at his place and left straight for Tottenham Court Road. Went to his school for a while before we left to the computer store to collect the parts. We then started walking for 30 seconds before YS felt unsafe from all the stares he was getting carrying the humongous Cooler Master case so we took a cab back.

Spent about an hour assembling the entire thing. The part which took the longest was the wires. Millions of them. Booted it up, installed Windows XP 64-bit, drivers, everything else and there she blows. I tested compressing my HD vids on his machine, it ran at 85fps; my laptop ran at 15fps. Beyond godlike.

Mid-tower Cooler Master aluminium case. Cool.

The i5 brain. 4 cores. Awesome.

Gigabyte motherboard with 8GB of DDR3 RAM. Godlike.

YS-Monstrosity paired with a 23inch Samsung LCD and an Nvidia Quadro 580 FX. Monstrous.

In Dubai

2009-09-26T21:39:00.003+01:00

It is 0250 local time. I am near gate 206 in the Dubai International Airport utilizing their Mobile Charger plug points. Spent about 30 minutes walking from one end of the terminal to the other. Airport shops are all the same anyway, expensive and identical products wherever you go.

So yea, summer of '09 has ended, and a really meaningful summer it was. Spent the first 3 weeks yumcha-ing and cinema-going with the PE1 gang. Also went to Melaka with the PE1 gang plus a few PRs, however it was less fun compared to last summer's escapade as we were missing a few key PE1ers.

The highlight of this summer would have to be my intern-ship. Despite the long hours and frustration that comes with the work, I actually quite enjoyed it and was quite sad to leave. Oh well, plenty of time to work after I graduate, but I really learnt a lot during my 2 month stint. The learning curve was practically a vertical line, but after you actually learn the stuff you actually know the stuff. It's quite a rewarding feeling.

Spent my last two weeks reading up lots about cars, trying to decode the 3rd generation Estima car manual which is only available in Japanese. Went back to Taiping for 3 days to pay my ah-mah a visit as well as indulge in Taiping food. Met up with my good 'ol car mates from CHS who didn't seem to change much from the good 'ol simpler days.

It is now 0430 Malaysian time, and the fatigue is getting to me. Didn't manage to catch winks during the previous flight as this dude did not allow me to recline my chair. Anyway, watched State of Play and The Proposal on the plane. Also caught the beginning of Angels and Demons which I missed when I watched it with Hehn during the first few days of summer.

Oh well, that's it for now I guess. Stay tuned for videos and photos of my summer '09 escapade over the next few months.

Bookmark: Batteries in a Portable World

2009-09-18T13:17:00.000+01:00

http://www.buchmann.ca/toc.asp

15MALAYSIA

2009-08-17T12:32:00.001+01:00

It has begun:

http://15malaysia.com/

JW's 21st: The Surprise

2009-08-15T04:29:00.001+01:00

So we arrived at JW's at 2000 and set stuff up. JW's dad and sis treated us to some pizza hut and KFCs whilst we waited for them. At about 2115 JW phoned his dad to fetch he and JT back from Kelana Jaya LRT and we then kept all the food inside and executed our double surprise.

Earlier in the day I texted WK to 'plan' a birthday mamak celebratory session in Murni for like 2130 and about 2120 WK phoned him up saying that he's waiting to fetch CL from her house. So, since he was expecting to have a mamak session we decided to hide all the PE1 people upstairs with balloons and party poppers. Then the decoy surprise comprising of his uni and secondary school friends then hang around outside the house behind the tree to give him a heart attack when he returns.

That was the setup, and below are videos of how it went:

Our almost perfect 3-tiered surprise setup for JW: 1 decoy surprise and another decoy mamak appointment.
Of course, it wouldn't be possible without JT's effort.

JW reads his birthday card out loud. And deposits amylase all over his birthday cupcakes.

JW opens his birthday gift and hugs everyone.

JW's 21st: A Birthday Message

2009-08-11T02:38:00.000+01:00

So yesterday was JW's 21st birthday. JT planned a surprised for him which was quite a success. More details to come next time. In the mean time here's a video message to JW all the way from Singapore.

Hiatus

2009-08-10T09:52:00.000+01:00

Just in case anyone visits here on a daily basis coz they're too free, i.e. WK, this blog is put on hold for the next month coz I'm too busy. So there.

Melaka Day 1: Flor de la Mar

2009-07-28T17:18:00.000+01:00

Paid RM3 to visit the Flor de la Mar, an replica of an old Portuguese galley; the Maritime Museum and the TLDM Museum. Well for RM3 can't really expect much, half the exhibits were not working. More of Two Thin's Farcical Melaka Tour coming up next.

Two Thin divulges more about their new album, Two Gay.

JW with Exhibit Shiao.

The deck of the Flor de la Mar.

Mast.

Shiao 1.

Shiao 2.

The TUDM museum.

Very bad imitation of SNSD.

MH, artillery man.

Melaka Day 1: Apartment & Nyonya

2009-07-22T17:01:00.001+01:00

We walked all the way back to Jonker Street and had cendol at Jonker 88 which is supposedly famous for cendol. Also tried Nyonya Assam Laksa as well as Curry Laksa which tasted rather good. After that we walked back to the car but stopped by a shop opposite the ori chicken rice ball shop to buy some cake thing in the shape of a fish which was not bad, and also to cool down with some lime kamquat thing. We then set off to find our apartment and check-in.

Got lost for a while whilst searching for our apartment due to all the stupid one-way streets in Melaka but we arrived there in the end. Rested for an hour or so and had a shower. Then CL's friend Don came to the apartment and we discussed where to go and decided to have some Nyonya food. Drove over to Ole Sayang but it was closed. Walked into a random Nyonya restaurant down the road called Bayonya instead.

Arriving at Jonker 88. WK waiting for us outside.

Laksa stall.

JW eats nyonya curry laksa.

In Jonker 88.

Cooling down.

Nothing to see here.

Tour of the Apartment.

12 person camwhore.

Two Thin posing with a cardboard.

Melaka Day 1: The Farcical Melaka Tour by Two Thin

2009-07-20T14:31:00.000+01:00

Part One:
Red.
Christ Church, a Tree and a Fountain.
Of Parameswara and the Scorpion King.

Part Two:
Welcome to Narnia.
Caverns of Kryptonite.

Part Three:
Transformers 3.
Ais Kacang Windmill.
The Place to be in Melaka.

Melaka Day 1: Tour

2009-07-17T16:47:00.003+01:00

After our late chicken rice ball breakfast we walked over to where all the historical center was: Christ Church, The Stadhuys, St Paul's Church, the A Famosa Gate. We then turned back and there were this bu and we went into some building called Bastion House because entrance fee was RM1. It was some Pudu Jail exhibition where they show the living quarters of the prisoners, what they ate, how they were punished. They even had a video of them caning prisoners which was very bloody and gross. We also went opposite the Bastion House to some garden where they store old vehicles. There was a big plane called Lang Rajawali which is the first Malaysian Royal Air Force plane.

All the guys.

The famous Christ Church we heard all about in our textbooks.

Trying on hat.

Everyone wants a staircase shot.

On top of St Pauls Hill.

WK buka kangkang.

An intellectual discussion between Two Thin.

Constipated girl.

Lost boy in the midst of a battle.

A' Famosa Jump.

Two Thin's biggest fan.

Melaka Day 1: Arrival

2009-07-15T16:37:00.002+01:00

Via transcontinental discussions we came to the conclusion that we shall go to Melaka for our Summer '09 trip. And went we did. It was, not so awesome coz Yuva and Shern ffk us in the end. Boo. Of course, we were also missing buddies from the Summer '08 trip, namely YS and JT. However, this year we have a new PR: Andrea from NUS. Woohoo.

We planned to set off from Chee Lynn's house at 0630 initially, but all plans fail. Instead, we set off from Hehn's house at 7 plus after Hehn and I went to pick Andrea up and WK picked the rest. Hehn's friend who shall be known as Shiao also joined us coz they so happen planned to go down Melaka on the same day.

The drive down was only about 2 hours to get to the Malacca City Centre. First place we went to was to Jonker Street and had chicken rice ball at the supposedly original restaurant. The chicken was bad I have to say; overcooked hence it was tough. And the rice balls: something different, yes, but does it taste better? Not really, the texture was weird. Yes it was my first time trying chicken rice balls ever.

Hrm? (JW shot this when trying to stop my video)

JW with earring.

Arrival at Jonker Street.

11 person camwhore.

Eating Chicken Rice Ball.

Italy Day 6: Fin

2009-07-12T17:20:00.000+01:00

After the leaning tower we walked towards the Stazione Pisa Centrale and bought a ticket to Pisa Aeroporto which was like a 5 minute train ride. However, stupid Ryanair managed to rip us off coz of some policy change that they didn't bother to mention to customers when they made it. Posted postcards to WK and YVC before we boarded the plane.

So yea, Italy was a fun trip, being an all guy thing we get to do crazy stuff that girls would not want to do.

The River Arno, the same one flowing through Florence under the Tuscan sunset.

Pisans enjoying the sunset by the river.

Posting postcards with tulan face.

How we felt after getting ripped off by Ryanair.

The Future of Hairdressing?

2009-07-11T15:32:00.002+01:00

I just had the weirdest hair cut at the Curve yesterday:

Select hair cut ticket and pay RM16 to some vending machine which then dispenses a ticket.
Queue and give ticket to hairdresser.
Get hair cut.
Get hair vacuumed off your head with some UV sterilized vacuum brush.
Get some collection card which entitles you to a free haircut after 4 times.

How weird is that?!

Melaka Video Collection 1

2009-07-10T13:29:00.000+01:00

2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1) Video 1	2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1) Video 2	2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1) Video 3	2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1) Video 4
2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1) Video 5	2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1) Video 6	2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1) Video 7	2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1) Video 8
2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1) Video 9	2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1) Video 10	2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1) Video 11	2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1) Video 12
2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1) Video 13	2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1) Video 14	2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1) Video 15

Melaka Day 1: Videos and Photo Albums

2009-07-06T17:34:00.004+01:00

I've uploaded all the photos and 3 videos to Facebook. 182 photos and 145 videos this entire trip. Hence you can expect the videos to roll out over the period of the next gazillion years lah.

2009-07-04 (Melaka Day 1)

2009-07-05 (Melaka Day 2)

An official opening to our 0601PE1 Summer '09 Melaka Makan Trip.

Second opening video for our 0601PE1 Summer '09 Melaka Makan Trip. In HD.

JW doing Sorry Sorry and proclaims Super Junior as Two Thin's idol.