My guy decided to cook for me the other day and guess what, he tried to copy my dark soy sauce chicken recipe!  Sad to say, I think his version of it was more successful than mine, only thing was that he used light soy sauce instead so it wasn't really dark soy sauce chicken anymore.  Anyway I really liked it... I really think he's got more cooking potential than me, haha!!  Here's a pictorial comparison between his version and mine... you be the judge!



Anyhow, my dad's dark soy sauce chicken is still the best... he was the one who taught me how to cook this dish.  Although as usual, I have totally forgotten about the measurements like how much soy sauce to use, or how much flour, stuff like that.

I have a paintball game going on this weekend at some hidden war village with a bunch of 25 pax... last I heard the organizers had another group of 30pax and would like to combine both groups together for a day-long shoot out.  I don't know, 2 hours of shooting sounds like fun, but A WHOLE DAY??  Are they crazy or what... anyway the last time I played paintball it was only for 2 hours and my arm was kinda injured from carrying the heavy gun for that whole 2 hours.  If I had to carry it the whole day, I think I'm gonna suffer from a broken arm at the end of the game... then again I don't think 500 bullets can last a whole day anyway. :D

Btw, if you're thinking of a scary look this Halloween, try using black eyeliner on your eyes and draw them really thick, then use makeup remover oil to rub it all over until your eyes look like it's bleeding in black.  This is what happens sometimes when I try to remove eye makeup using makeup remover oil... cleaning off makeup in front of the mirror at 3am sometimes scares the shit outta me... LOL

Feeling a little moody today so I decided to try something sweet to cheer myself up.  My first attempt at making crepes!

My attempt at making pancakes a few months ago was a total failure.  Mum said they were too thick and tasted too raw.  Anyway, my mum is an expert at making yummy crepes, she used to make them for my breakfast when I was small.  So here goes my attempt to copycat Mum's homemade crepes... but I used tapioca flour instead of the usual kinda flour for no special reason, just because there is tapioca flour in the house and nothing else but tapioca flour.

Gluten-Free Tapioca Flour Crepes (from Mr. Breakfast)

Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons water
1/2 cup tapioca flour
Some sugar (self added, cos I like my crepes to be sweet!)


- Beat all the ingredients together to form a batter
- Brush some oil in a non-stick pan.  Next time, I will forgo this step because my first crepe turned out to be too oily and looked like roti canai instead (see the pic below)...
- Pour the batter into the pan and turn the pan around until it forms a thin layer
- Let it cook until the sides are brown, then flip over
- Repeat until batter is finished.

Result:

1st Crepe: too oily, turned out to be more like roti canai than a thin crepe.



2nd Crepe: No more oil this time, smoother and looks better



3rd Crepe: Ran out of batter, ended up looking like a small horse-face shaped crepe... or whatever you think it looks like.



Overall the crepes were still a bit too thick and not sweet enough.  I used 2 tablespoons of sugar, so I think I should use 3 or 4 tablespoons next time.  Since it wasn't sweet enough, I drizzled honey over it and added a few pieces of canned peach... and, tadaa!



I'm sure practice makes perfect, but I don't think I want to make anymore crepes in the near future.  Eating it is so much easier than making it... so I think I'll just wait till my next trip back home and ask mum to make some for my breakfast. :)

My next big weekend project: Chicken Curry.  Maybe... haha!!

My first attempt at cooking mee goreng!  I have tried fried rice before, but this is my first time trying to cook mee goreng, so... here goes nothing...

First of all, my secret weapon: LOW FAT NOODLES!  Haha!! Seriously, do you believe this crap??



Ingredients:
Cintan noodles (the one without the fancy flavouring, just plain instant noodles)
Sliced chicken breast
1 sliced chicken frankfurter
1 egg, well beaten
Chopped garlic
Sliced carrot
A handful of small pak choy
Light soy sauce
A pinch of salt
Extra virgin olive oil (or any cooking oil would do)


- Boil the noodles for about 5-10 minutes.  You may boil the chicken breast together with it as well to save time (at least that's what I did).
- When the noodles are cooked, drain and put aside.  Boil the chicken (if you haven't done so) and drain out when cooked.
- Boil the carrots and pak choy for a few seconds and drain.
- Heat a spoonful of olive oil in a non-stick pan.
- Stir fry the chopped garlics.  Throw in the chicken breast and frankfurter slices and stir fry for about a minute.
- Throw in the noodles and add another spoonful of oil (one thing I found out was that the noodles kept sticking together which was very annoying!  A pair of chopsticks would be very helpful to solve this problem)
- Add about a spoonful of soy sauce and a pinch of salt.  Mix well.
- Mix in the beaten egg and stir fry into the noodles until the egg is set.
- Add in the carrots and pak choy and stir into the noodles for a few seconds (not too long or the vegetables will look ugly).
- Scoop into a plate and serve!


Now I can cook my favourite mamak dish! :D

Being in your twenties officially reserves you the right to keep your age a secret / lie about your age.  If you are a girl.  And you look younger than you really are.  Seriously, it isn't much fun being twenty-something.  Twenty-something spells nothing but responsibility, commitment, seriousness and adulthood.  Gone are my careless younger days filled with carefree fun, laughter, freedom and fearlessness.  Gone are the rebel days I can let my hair down and do the things I used to have done without having to think of consequences or cause-and-effect.  Gone are those days when I would come home at 4am looking like a drunken midnight ghost one too many times.  I lived my life like a blowing breeze back then, perhaps I had then taken things too lightly or valued life not as it should be.  I could've killed myself a million times over by flooring the gas pedal and flying through the streets like a speed demon in the middle of the night and breaking every single rule there was, or threw my life away in a split second when I sped through the winding roads with glee.

But I lived to be twenty-something.  I had my time of youth filled with fun and danger.  One day I woke up and realized that I had to grow up and assume responsibility, take into consideration the consequences of my actions, and begin to think of my future.  Since that day, everything went tumbling down like an avalanche.

I realized that it is not easy to be the responsible person I never was.  I realized that it is not easy to suddenly learn how to think of consequences instead of living life just as it is and letting life happen as it would.  I realized that I had to work hard, and I mean REAL hard, to throw away my past life and start a better one.  It is certainly not easy to be someone you never was.

I had always dreamt of being a writer.  Or a musician (totally out of league considering how badly I fared in piano exams).  I love languages.

But I did not pursue my dream.  It was one of the biggest regrets of my life.  Have you ever read The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery?  I totally love that book.  My father handed it to me one day and said, "Read it.  See if you can find out the true meaning to it."

My dad is a very philosophic person who has read countless literary books.  Perhaps it is in my genes that I am also a fan of literature with deep hidden metaphors, or could it be a coincidence that I was also named after a famous writer in the WW2 era?

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

I gave up my dream because of circumstances which you would understand better after reading The Little Prince.  In place of that dream, I went to study, graduated with decent grades, and took up a noble profession.  So here I am today, being twenty-something... by the way... this is a super belated post in which I am supposed to be all emo and melancholic reminiscing over my younger days which has left me nothing but a bundle of memories and a couple of scars to remind me of how I used to be.

Finally, I'm actually getting down to write about what I personally think of the Sony Ericsson P1i.

I had to replace my faulty W810i which had faithfully served me well for the past one and half years, and Porky introduced me to this huge, bulky phone called the P1i!  At first sight, it seems a bit UNCLE, painted black and silver with so many keys on the keypad which I later found out was called: the QWERTY keypad.  LOL noobie me :P  Anyway, it's a sorta PDA phone with a Symbian UIQ3 platform, touchscreen and comes with a stylus (see, told you it's kinda uncle-ish).  Being a Symbian phone, it is naturally SLOW (sometimes painfully slow), but well it won't kill.  It actually has 128MB of built in RAM!

A little summary on the phone: It comes equipped with 3G, WLAN, Bluetooth, IR, 3.2-megapixel camera, Symbian UIQ 3 platform, Music Player (not Walkman, though), business card scanner, etc.


The thing I love most about the phone is its megasized screen (240x320 pixels, 262,144 color touchscreen)!  The colours and all are very beautiful and the large screen itself makes photo taking more convenient :D  The camera is a disappointment though, although 3.2 megapixel, it is subpar compared to my old 2-megapixel w810i.  Photos taken with the P1i aren't as clear, sharp and pretty as those taken with my w810i.  It doesn't take macro shots that well either.  Plus, if you use the optical zoom function (which goes up to 3.2x) or use the Bursts mode, the photo quality automatically downgrades to VGA mode. :(  Strange, yeah.  However, it does have autofocus, night mode, flash, timer and some basic functions.  I couldn't find any function to capture in panoramic mode though, don't think it actually has it (unlike the w810i camera) but you can try to take multiple shots and then stitch them yourself afterwards.

Anyway, apart from the camera, it is still a very useful and entertaining phone!  Because it runs on the UIQ 3 platform, there are many, many things you can install and play around with.  Or if you didn't find a nice UIQ 3 software you like, you could always install those Java applications, these are well supported as well.  To date, I've only installed a few - Google Maps, Gmail, Meebo, AVG Security, DIVX Player and some Java games.  UIQ 3 supported games would be more fun, however there is so few you can download for free on the internet but I guess this could change over the next few months... maybe?  Haha :P  You can download themes as well, I love the ones at UIQ Technology which are really classy and nice.  There is a large database of themes at Mobile9 too (I absolutely love this website, it has so many yummy goodies!).  There are many things you can actually do to the phone, like modding it, or hacking it to have the Walkman inside or turn it into an iPhone, whichever you please, or change the default icons and fonts, and many more which I am just too lazy to explore.

The sad thing about video in the SE P1i is that it doesn't support many video formats and encodings.  It can only play 3gp, mp4 and mpeg files with certain encodings only.  However, you could play AVI/DIVX files by installing the DIVX player.  I have yet to find a solution to play wmv and other file formats though.

When I first got my hands on the P1i, messaging was a pain because of the qwerty keypad I was new to, and took a little time getting myself used to it.  Blogging from my P1i can be a pain too - tapping away on that small keypad!  But I absolutely love that it has WLAN and 3G so I can surf the net and check emails on the go!  However if you're using WLAN on the P1i, you will not be able to play videos on Youtube, unless you change some settings on your router.  Some people claim to be able to access videos via http://m.youtube.com (although with only limited choice of videos) but some are still unable to do so (like me, lol) as the video only shows that it's buffering but never seems to play.  Reports say that it works fine on 3G and GPRS though.

The phone doesn't have a built-in GPS function, but if you like, you could buy an external GPS device which is sold as an accessory at most phone shops, and then attach it to a slot at the back of the phone.  Or, you could always use Google Map, like me!! HAHAHAHAA

All in all, I personally think that although there is still room for improvement on the phone, and despite the noob camera and absence of the SE Walkman, the P1i is definitely a good buy.  It's definitely a value buy for that price you are paying for it, considering the functions and all. (Of course, I am talking from an AP set point of view, HAHAHAHA)  If you wanna buy an AP set, however, do be careful to check for original accessories, IMEI number and all.

And so, here ends my very noob review on the Sony Ericsson P1i.  You can read more on the web, there are scores of reviews available at your disposal.  I like this website best, it has many tips and tricks, information as well as how to mod your phone! :D  I believe the author is from HK, if I'm not mistaken.

My previous post on the P1i.

My gut feeling tells me I've just jumped out of the tiger's mouth only to land right in the lion's throat (keluar mulut harimau masuk mulut singa).  But that's a long story.  Blah.

I'm cold, lonely and freezing on this tiny little island far far away from home.  Sometimes I wrap myself in my blankie and sit on my bed wondering how I managed to drag myself this far.  Then I get so carried away with wondering, that the more I do it, the more angsty and emotional I become.  Sometimes I worry, sometimes I cry.  Sometimes I am just plain depressed for no particular reason at all.

Sometimes it's the coffee.  A single mugful makes me all nervy and jumpy and all.  Well, sometimes it's not.

It's not very comforting to come home everyday and sit down to dinner which has gone very, very cold indeed.  It's awfully depressing, you know.

"I'm cold and lonely. :(  I need a hug!" I say demandingly, when Porky calls at night.  And he could only say, "Cover yourself with a blankie okay?"

Where is a nice, fuzzy warm hug when you need one.  Sighs.

A friend of mine, however, had a better idea when I kept whining about it...







"TURN OFF THE AIRCOND, SILLY."

I was having a really hard morning today when depression hit me without warning and I was having a hard time controlling my emotions.  But I am very blessed indeed to have 2 noob friends who tolerated my emotional tantrums, angry complaints and my irate temper, and even provided lengthy advice which got them frothing at the mouth in exasperation while I try my best to pretend I didn't hear anything.

I know how it feels to console a person who is so full of emotional shit, so I just wanna thank these 2 guys for putting up with my emotional crap (even though I'm a very difficult person to talk to, haha!!) and for all the advice.  It must've been a very tough job.  Hahaha.

Anyway, thanks for all the advice and the obscene jokes, guys.  I know, I shouldn't have coffee in the morning anymore.  It really gets my nerves all messed up and my brain haywire.

I should have a nice big glass of malibu on the rocks instead. :D

If only they serve Bailey's instead of coffee in the office.  Now THAT I call motivation.  HAHAHAHAAA just kidding.

The internet is a vast ocean of knowledge - anyone would know that.  There are many, many things you can do with the internet: surf (for whatever stuff that may be of interest to you), download movies, watch Youtube, read blogs, read the news, search for information, etc etc... there is just no end to what you can do with the internet!  It is a heaven indeed for cheapskates like me to get movies, music, BOOKS (eBooks, they call it), famous cookbooks and yummy recipes, make long distance calls/chats for free, read free newspapers, and many many more free stuff you can rip off the internet.

It is a very useful tool indeed.  Some people cannot live without it, some die with it, some are married to it, face the truth!  Most of us are addicted to it.  At least most of YOU who are reading this.  Else you'd be somewhere else doing something else rather than sit in front of that screen reading this blog, eh?

Be it for entertainment or for plagiarism (oh come on, don't tell me you've never copied homework off the internet before), the internet has come to exist as a very important part of our lives, rendering most entities useless once it breaks down.  Companies lose money for the duration they're taken offline, students suffer intense nervous breakdowns from not being able to complete their homework, computer freaks die from being cut off from their life, different parts of the world are separated without means of communication, I don't know you name it.  Anyway, it's really freaky to imagine isn't it, if one day the internet is wiped off from the face of the earth.  ARMAGEDDONNNN!!!!  lol :P

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Well my point is, Clarinase is a very good drug to cure flu and clear up a running nose.  Very effective indeed.

Actually, I completely forgot the reason why I blogged today, or I may have misplaced my brain, but anyway I'd better be off searching for it now, lest it runs off to a far, far away place. :(

I'm finally back from my so-called vacation!  Well not really, but a well deserved break from my everyday life I guess.

For the first time I actually had the nerve to take a night bus for four and a half hours, reaching waaaayyyy past midnight.  My mom absolutely flipped when she heard about this thanks to the many reports of bus crashes lately.  Konsortium was suspended last week, but surprisingly defied orders and I still saw several of its buses out on the highway.  Absolutely crazy!

I didn't do much over the weekend, except the necessary, but anyways, photos for your viewing pleasure :)



In case you were wondering, I haven't had time to edit any of my pictures or watermark them and besides I haven't been able to use my trusty old PC lately and don't have a copy of Photoshop in this PC, so yeah... unedited pictures for you :)

Back to work tomorrow... sob sob... :(

Wish I had a piano or guitar with me now... :(