Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Skipping out on the Company event and overloading on Calories

On Christmas Eve, I had a gastronomically decadent escape with my girls to Jones the Grocer @ Dempsey Road. Instead of getting soaked to the skin in the monsoon rains trying to play treasure hunt (I kid you not, while secretly gloating at their misery, I asked some hapless attendees of their wet experience, and they all pulled faces longer than Bottom's. I knew better you see, since I was privy to the luncheon details already, so I made sure that we skip out. Just think, they had it al fresco style.) we were enjoying a marvelous breakfast with lots of delicious calorie-laden yummies, like the typical English fry-up which I had for S$20++. The other girls also enjoyed a smoked salmon breakfast @ S$14.50++.
Bloody marvelous I do say. A bit ex, considering the rapidly thinning wallets and the gruesome economy on the horizon. But what the hell, me likey.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Saturday Munchies 4 - Lazy Bake Lemony Peach Tart



Was lazy and wanted to figure how much time would be saved if I would use a readymade dough. So I baked a Lemony Peach Tart, which involves me soaking canned peaches in lemon juice and zest and rolling out readymade puff pastry dough.

Was not too bad a process, except the dough was a bit tough to roll out, and by the time I was ready, my sweet peaches had turned into sour peaches, which Town Mouse didn't like. Fussy stomach.

Ewwww, what are these? Housekeeping Treasures

Talk about a triumph of housekeeping. Mother decided to springclean the kitchen shelves, and found tucked in the deepest corner of the highest cupboard shelf....


Lizard eggs!!! I kid you not. Problem is, la Lizards have been born and are no doubt making sweet sweet love somewhere else among our shelves or walls.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

TGIF Specials 4: 啃他鸡 *total lmao*

Now who is smart enough to notice the innuendo in the chinese name? Hahah. Anyway as a tidbit, KFG is a total 山寨 of KFC. You know we tend to call it 海盗牌 in Singapore.
Chinese Lesson From ChinaSmack.com
山寨 = shan1 zhai4 = literally “mountain stronghold” in reference to historical warlord holdouts that were outside of government control. A “shanzhai” edition product thus refers to products outside of government regulations that are widely reflected in the numerous fake and knockoff electronics/commodities made in China today. The term “shanzhai” can also refer to things that are improvised or home-made and are generally crude in both form and function (the closest English equivalent would be “ghetto”).

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Anti-Phishing Phil

I was checking out the faculty websites from my other favorite place on Earth (ie HCII), and I chanced upon a game from Jason Hong, the same guy who brought us Marmite. It's called Anti-Phishing Phil, to teach us duh, anti-phishing.


Give it a try. =d

Monday, November 17, 2008

What famished geeks do when they are hungry?

They zap a hotdog (at 219V AC) for supper. Within seconds. Check out the third pic where LED lights show the current flowing through the dog... nice. :d


Sunday, November 9, 2008

Youtube Junkie Strikes 1 - Why is farting good for you

Because it can get rid of unwanted animals near you. We should begin farting in schools and offices. :d


Thursday, November 6, 2008

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Bahasa Indonesia Pekerjaan Rumah Saya 2 - Still about my Hobby...

Spent very stressful ten minutes before class just now, trying to scribble something to read up for class. My teacher nearly had heart failure last week after I read out my initial draft (as uploaded earlier last week), and I was too lazy to rewrite. Not bothering to keep up with my Bahasa Indonesia outside of class are showing very obvious repercussions...

Anyway he said "bagus" when I was done (and he didn't for the other classmates), so I am not entirely hopeless. :d *Gloat*

Saya tidak mau melalaikan pekerjaan rumah saya!!!

Saya punya beberapa hobi. Saya suka membaca buku, terutama buku romatis. Penulis/ pengarang pujaan saya adalah Amanda Quick. Saya juga membaca non-fiksi, terutama buku sejarah.

Saya suka memasak dan makan. Saya suka sekali mencoba resep dan berusaha menciptakan makanan. Bagaimana karena saya sedang membekerja dari hari Senin sampai hari Jumat, saya bisa memasak makan siang pada hari Sabtu.

Saya biasanya mendengarkan musik klasik. Mendelssohn adalah komponis favorit saya. Saya suka menggubahnya "Violin Concerto in E Minor", yang menggunakan piano dan biola.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Saturday Munchies 3 - Expressionful Bunny Breakfast



One Bunny, Two Expressions.

Clockwise from left:
Bacon Rosettes, tomato slices, grapes, cheesy Bunny sandwich, and omelet.

Other interesting sites include
http://pikkopots.blogspot.com/

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Bahasa Indonesia Pekerjaan Rumah Saya

Nasi ayam, kue coklat, daging sapi panggang, ikan salem dengan makaroni … saya gemar akan memasak se makan. Saya suka sekali malakukan percobaan dengan resep baru atau berusaha menciptakan piring yang saya sudah makan di kafe dan restoran tadi. Bagaimana karena saya sedang membekerja dari hari Senin sampai hari Jumat, saya bisa memasak makan siang pada hari Sabtu.

Sejak perjalanan ke Seoul dua Tahun yang lalu, saya sudah menyuka sekali Korean makanan. Oleh karena itu saya sudah malakukan kimchi saya sendiri dan bi bim bap. Keluarga saya suka kimchi chigae saya. Kimchi Chigae adalah daging dan sayursayuran pedas yang direbus dengan api kechil.

"The Computer says No...." My New Fav show

Little Britain has moved to USA... literally "Little Britain USA".

In this short season, they make fun of both the British and American sides of the house, with really crazy recurring characters from the original series as well as equally crazy new characters. My favourite "couple" are Mark and Tom, the supposedly straight definitely avid "gymmers".

As per Heel's request, the file will not be autoplayable. Must watch though!!! :D

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Saturday Munchies 2 - Crazy Omelettes Day

The Boyfriend Fiance and I are going backpacking in Japan (in the dead of winter, we are nuts!) so we needed to buy backpacking gear. He had lost his luggage between San Francisco and Montreal while returning from a conference. It did come back later, after having a week-long sojourn in France (we have the stickers to prove it). Anyway the thing is dead as a doornail, after being cracked open by some arschloch official.

So we bought two 60l backpacks at Mustafa. I love Mustafa, especially with Deepavali around the corner. We had a great time squeezing through the crowds and checking out the mechandise on the streets and in the store. The street decorations were repetitive, a huge, disappointing reminder of the recession now upon us.

We went last Saturday after a light lunch (we had overshot our cholesterol limit at MacDingDong in the morning). While catching snippets the new buffet show on TV last Thursday, I became terribly fascinated by the chef churning out omelettes in perfect semi-circles. I was reminded of that episode while watching the Fiance chomp on Big Breakfast.

So I got home and started frying omelettes. I had one failed attempt where I poured in too much egg-milk mixture into the pan, and thus encountered difficulties flipping the omelette. So I made more (remember, my sunny side up episode at the chalet this year?).

A lot more.

About 9 mini tomato omelettes. Way too much Cholesterol. The F was convinced I was trying to do him in... so I fried a simple Farfalle dish. Two omelettes sandwiching a piece of Cheddar (hmm, maybe I was trying to kill him), and Farfalle fried with julienned carrots, onions and asparagus. The plastic looking stuff on top of the pasta is bonito flakes, if you are wondering.

But I digress. The F and I were exhausted after walking through the entire maze of Mustafa Centre (I got to see the Indian Army and Navy uniforms. I love the Navy uniform, though I wonder if the poor men will split their pants when they bend, because they are so tight! Nice asses, though rather visually and "imaginationally" disturbing...

So ladden with our various heavy packages, we popped over to the Tandoori Restaurant next door.

I was attracted by the cute "Superb!" declaration next to the description in the menu for the Butter Chicken, so we ordered that, 1 Puri, 2 Garlic Naans, 1 Chapati, and 1 Cauliflower fried with Potato (I remembered fondly the cauliflower I ate at an Indian NTU schoolmate's wedding) and Masala Tea. I loved the onion side dish that came with the Naan. The butter chicken was as described, pretty superb, with the just right amount of salty, sour and heat. The breads were pretty plain, but adequate in their way, if rather plain-looking. But the Cauliflower, while not being the one I had at the wedding, was very nice. Tandoori Restaurant's staff were attentive, and friendly (except for one Chinese waiter, who suddenly swooped in and cleared my dish without asking me first. Gave me a lovely whiff of Eau De Pit as well with his proximity. *Yeww*). The waitress was very nice to advise us to order ala carte instead of taking from the buffet (which was actually for some private function???), which was slightly expensive for the variety. The price however was rather steep (~$45).

TANDOORI RESTAURANT
320 Serangoon Road, #01-26 Serangoon Plaza, tel: 6294 2232

Saturday Munchies 1 - Bear 2 Bento


I went mad at Daiso and bought a really bizarre egg mould. We are talking star and heart shapes. I was rather doubtful of its effectiveness, though I have seen samples in some of the bento images on the Internet and books.

I decided to try it some Saturdays ago while giving my bento dishes a little airing.

It was an interesting attempt. Note: should insert into mould while hot, which I did. Unfortunately the egg yolks were not located at the centre of the egg, so the end effect was pretty ugly.

What you see in (clockwise from top): [1] fried dumplings (with homemade skin), rosti, boiled carrots and egg (heart shape), [2] sausage flowers and two rice bears (one with a cracked head. By the time I gotten everything ready for arranging into the containers, the rice had cooled down too much to give the bear a headache).

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Arrogant or Insecure? Hitching Rides with Buddha



Will Ferguson likes to ask the helpful yet hapless Japanese who offered him a ride, if Japanese people are arrogant or insecure. Most said insecure, some said arrogant and insecure. Finally he encountered Katsuya-san.

"Arrogant or insecure? Or?" He looked at me as if to say, Well, there's your problem. Perhaps the problem is in the question itself. "We Japanese," he said confidently, "are not arrogant or insecure, we are both. You know, it is possible to be insecure in a very arrogant way - and vice versa. Look at America. I have always thought that you Americans manager to be dumb in a very smart way. Very smart." (Note: Will is Canadian)

I initially thought he asked this in retaliation for all the "harros" and "zis is a ben" announcements by annoying brats and "Japanese is number one" comments from the equally annoying adults. He also likes to retaliate to patronising xenophrobes who compliment him on his people's (apparently all white people are Americans) girth, by coolly replying that it wasn't because they, meaning the Americans are big, but that the Japanese are ...

Maybe Will asked the question because he considered the Japanese a paradox. They politely, hospitably treat Will and include him in the group, and yet remind him now and then that he is a foreigner, that he is different. Will will always be an outsider looking in, no matter when he is carrying the shrine with them, soaking in the bath with them, or even singing "Diane" in the Karaoke with them.

I have to say that Will himself is a paradox, he resents the invisible wall and yet he also takes advantage of it as well. He doesn't mind freeloading on the free rides, the free food the drivers ply on him and even sneaks into a bar behind a group of salarymen, hopeful that they would notice and include his horny self in their play. He did succeed, but he did not manage to touch a free thigh, because the salarymen were only interested in drinking, singing, bitching about office politics (conveniently whoever was on in attendance) and in the vice senior supervisor's (he is higher ranked than the senior vice supervisor, don't ask me why) case, promoting everyone, even Will.

One of the funniest incidents in the book occurred when the very pissed (do not read: angry) inn manager in Hokkaido, Mr Saito, became very worried that Will would not be able to sucker anyone into giving him a ride (disregarding the fact that Will had already made it across land and water all the way from Kyushu to Hokkaido). In fact it is quite ironic how all the Japanese drivers who stopped for William are adamnant that other Japanese people would not stop for him. Mr Saito scrawled drunkenly on a cardboard, this message in gradually smaller script:

HELLO EVERYONE!

I AM WILLY FROM AMERICA.

I CAN SPEAK JAPANESE A LITTLE.

PLEASE TAKE ME TO SAPPORO.

I AM AN ENGLISH TEACHER.

I CAME ALL THE WAY FROM KYUSHU.

REALLY, I DID.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

I AM SORRY TO BOTHER YOU

let's be international friends!

The title was concepted from the Zen saying "If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him." According to the Ordinary Mind website, The idea was that the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, realised upon enlightenment that all beings are Buddhas, while the road is two-fold; the road outside where the road outside where we look outside ourselves for the ones who have all the answers, and the inner mind road, where we set up all the "shoulds" we must obey to turn ourselves into the Buddhas we don't believe we already are, but think we must become.
So "killing the Buddha" means killing or wiping out this fantasy image, and "the road" is two fold: the road outside where we look outside ourselves for the ones who have all the answers, and the inner mind road, where we set up all the "shoulds" we must obey to turn ourselves into the Buddhas we don't believe we already are, but think we must become.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Living without the omnipresent China


With the recent furore over China's dubious milk products, Yours Truly (who is very bored and about to do the "Cocker Spaniel" act) pondered on the mystery of human cheese, soya cheese (she is truly cheesy), and now she has read "A Year without 'Made in China': One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy" by Sara Bongiorni.
She, husband Kevin, son Wes, and daughter Sofie, embarked on a year-long crazy adventure of literally, trying to continue American consumerism while boycotting Chinese products and Walmart (her great hate for destroying family-run shops, landscape with their empty storefronts, and squeezing vendors) in 2005.
I would say it was a beautiful ideal, but an ideal it is. It is certainly not infallible, when Sara had to cajole her sister-in-law to circumvate her rebellious husband's demand of a play pool for the kids by giving him one China-made on his birthday. Often even when the product does not come from China, the box it came in was from China. And does one consider "Made in Hongkong" as "Made in China"? These were some of the many "trying" issues they encountered while crippled for gift ideas, resorted to a Mexican pinata, a tiny German doll and Taiwanese swords etc.
Apparently gifts, even though China-made, are acceptable, even very appreciated by the family. In fact the biggest obstacles often happen on the toy front. The children even subconsicously "monkey see, monkey do" copied their mother, by picking up toys in the shop and frown while saying "China". The irony was not lost on Kevin, when Sara's narration of her toy-starved children's antics at the mall to her friend, who cried and gathered up all the abandoned toys left in an empty hurricane shelter, and gifted them to her kids.
"Well, that's just great," he says. "We've become a charity for deprived children".
Like Sara concluded herself at the end of the year long adventure: "But is a lifelong China boycott what I really want? I am not at all certain that it is. On the one hand, it's been satisfying to learn firsthand that China really hasn't taken over the planet, or our lives, at least no entirely, although sometimes it looked that way, especially in the toy and electronics aisles and at the shoe store. Of course, we're not out of the woods yet. I have a feeling China is just getting started when it comes to world domination.
On the other hand, we have a broken blender, a stuck kitchen drawer and a television that's fading fast, all problems that seem to demand Chinese solutions, We are still boiling water for coffee in the mornings because we don't have a coffeemaker, and if we don't give up the boycott then maybe we never will. Lots of little things in life come from China: birthday candles, squirt guns, light swords. These are small, inconsequential things that cannot properly be described as important, but I'm not sure I'd like to live my entire life without them..."

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Be Cheap, Be Creative 1 - Build your own Laser Tag

Wish one of the kiddos had done this at the Science Conference. The closest one I saw that is related to this was the velocity powered laser pointer.

Andrew Walbran (I seriously recommend you guys check out his website and other projects as well) has built his homemade laser tag. What you need appears to be a toy gun, laser diode, a PIC16F628A microcontroller and some misc. components.

Check out full details here, on creating your own Laser Tag.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Birthday Bento (also Happy Belated to Husky)

Well, turns out the birthday cake was a disaster, as usual. :) Rather than turning out like a cookie as always, now it suited the Midsummer Autumn theme by resembling a giant mooncake, or so I was told.

But these are the pictures from the bento I made for the picnic which we later got rained and "anted" on.

There is NO such Thing as Safe Searching

Yesterday I was searching for something on Google. The search results returned several legitimate looking sites. As is my usual won, I opened the first few under new tabs, and one of them actually directed me to another site where I was unwittingly attacked. My *ahem* blocked it and told me about it. However I do not trust that it has been resolved and have changed my passwords. Btw, I was using Firefox (a colleague has advised that I use a plugin together with Firefox to make it safer).

I decided to read up on it.

Guess what? This is what Jon Swartz and Byron Acohido said on USA TODAY in their 31st March 2008 article "Google Searchers could end up with a new type of Bug":

Cybercrooks are manipulating the computer code used to put the pizazz in millions of websites in hopes of taking over unsuspecting consumers' PCs.
The vulnerability occurs when someone does a Google search, then clicks on a result that has been secretly tainted by hackers. They will usually be taken to the Web page they expect. But at the same time, they are invisibly redirected to a computer server that installs a hidden program.
This program enables hackers to use the PC to spread spam and carry out scams. Typically, it also lets the attacker embed a keystroke logger, which collects and transmits your passwords and any other sensitive data you type online.
Any website indexed by Google (GOOG) that fails to carefully handle JavaScript — the coding that activates many cool Web features, such as changing the color of a button when someone mouses over it — is a potential target. That's seven in 10 sites, says tech security firm WhiteHat Security. Hackers have discovered ways to trick the website application to run malicious JavaScripts.
"We're in a phase where one or two smart guys are attacking a few dozen major websites," says David Dewey, manager of IBM's X-Force security division. "In the next few weeks I would expect to see copycats attacking hundreds of high-profile websites."
Attackers have secretly corrupted Google results that direct traffic to Wired, CNet, TV.com, USATODAY.com, ZDNet Asia, History.com and many universities, says Dancho Danchev, a Netherlands-based security researcher, and Finjan Software, an Israeli security firm.
Most Google search results are safe. But in March alone Dewey and other security researchers found several hundred thousand corrupted Web pages returned in common Google search queries. They fear crime groups have just begun to take advantage.
Google issued a statement saying it is helping affected websites fix the problem and is also developing new tools "to detect and block" malicious Web pages.
Security experts say consumers can protect themselves by keeping anti-virus subscriptions and software updates current. Running an anti-virus scan may help repair infected PCs, although more serious fixes may be necessary.
Spokespeople for USATODAY.com and Wired said each blocked the attacks as soon as they were discovered. CNet, owner of TV.com and ZDNet Asia, declined to comment. History.com did not respond to queries.
"It should be the responsibility of the website operators to stop exposing people to risk as soon as possible," says Billy Hoffman, a security researcher at Hewlett-Packard. Gail Hillebrand, senior attorney at Consumers Union, agrees.
Attackers have taken advantage of JavaScript before, but usually on individual sites. The search engine trick — which has been focused on Google, though it could work on Yahoo and MSN search engines — is new, Danchev says.
Attackers are thrilled "to capture even a small percent of the traffic" of a big site, Finjan's Yuval Ben-Itzhak says.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

CSS tortures

Folks who code CSS know that they have to test for major browsers, i.e. IE6, IE7 and Firefox (Lord have mercy on us, when IE8 comes out. It's Beta now) before deployment, and the process? A total bitch to test for. Neil Kilbride shared some advice on this:

"Browser CSS Differences (IE6 IE7 Firefox), by Neil Kilbride, Tuesday, 22 January 2008

Typically the 3 major browsers used are Firefox, IE6 and IE7. Perhaps you thought they would behave the behave the same when rendering CSS in the browser window? If only life were that simple.
Although Firefox and IE7 and more similar than ever in rendering CSS, IE6 has always had a mind of its own, adding padding and spacing amongst other things in random locations. However, there is a simple way to cater specifically for the major browsers. IE6 recognises underscore lines, but IE7 does not. IE6 and IE7 recognise period lines. For example...
#header
{
margin-top: 8px;
.margin-top: 10px;
_margin-top: 4px;
}

Firefox, and every other non-IE browser, will only see and use the 8px, IE6 will see the 10px line, but then the 4px line will stomp on it, and only IE7 will see the 10px line. You can now support all major browsers without having to write a serverside script, clientside script or even a horrible CSS expression :)"

Visit DynamicDrive and FreeBits for other CSS tricks and kicks, e.g. inverted tabs.

The secret to a Man's Heart - Petite, Leggy and Busty

Article from Daily Mail, 19th August 2008

Small women with long legs are the most sexually attractive to men, scientists claim. Females such as Scarlett Johansson, Raquel Welch and Marilyn Monroe with short slender bodies, large busts and slim limbs have the ideal body shape, according to research.

Dr William Brown, of Brunel University, which carried out the study, said: 'We found that shorter, slimmer females with long slender limbs and larger breasts are more attractive.'

Small is beautiful: The study reveals that men find women like Scarlett Johansson, Marilyn Monroe and Rachel Weisz, with long legs, small frames and bigger busts, more attractive because they have low 'body masculinity'.
Body symmetry is important to what men and women find aesthetically pleasing in each other, the research suggests. Previous studies had demonstrated that those with facial features that are symmetrical - so the left and right sides of the face match - are more attractive to the opposite sex.

But the relationship between body symmetry and attractiveness has been less clear.

In the Brunel research, both men and women reported that symmetric bodies were more attractive than asymmetric ones.

The scientists claim, however, that we do not notice symmetry in the body directly, but instead look for much more obvious signs of attractiveness such as height, leg length and shoulder definition. This means women with low 'body masculinity' - who are short with long legs and a larger bust - are highly desirable to men.

Monday, August 18, 2008

How to Post a YouTube Vidz on Blogger?

Procedure
1. Go to the YouTube link of your desired file
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWn0lxRNqos&feature=user]
2. Copy the contents of the "Embed" Field as shown.


3. Create a new post in Blogger.com and go to "Edit HTML".
4. Type whatever nonsensical crap you want to talk about.
5. Paste the entire crap you copied from the "Embed" field into the Blogger post field, and remove all the crap
before and after the "<\Embed\>" (remember to ignore the \) tag, leaving
6. Recommended: Change the width to 400 and height to 300 for best view in Blogger.
7. Click "Publish Post".

PS: Will not teach how to force autoplay of the video. Got enough complaints already. Anyway check out this guy, he is teaching Photoshop with a really sarcastic commentary. Yet another competitive sufferer. Don't you just love it? Check out his series, You Suck at Photoshop!!!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Read up on PHP @ PHP Everywhere

PHPLens, a PHP app server (free to download for use, up to 30 records) hosts John Lim's blog on all things PHP, literally PHP Everywhere.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Toast: the story of a Boy's Hunger


Nigel Slater chronicled his childhood culinary angst in Toast, 247 pages worth of yolked torment, chocolate pleasures and way, way too many initiations into the other camp. It is bittersweet in some places, weird in others while remaining extremely engaging from cover to cover. I found the part about his family most riveting, from his railing at his ailing mother that he hoped she would die not knowing that she would do so a few days after that during Christmas, his father marrying a working class woman and ultimately being killed by her excellent cooking.

Milk (Excerpt from Toast, pg 61)
My first glass of milk, in truth just two mouthfuls, had ended with my being violently sick over my new sandals. There had been odd attempts to encourage me to try it again, but none had succeeded in getting me to do more than dip my finger in it and shudder. If it looked as if I might be pushed further, a mock heave usually brought the matter to a close. At break times, Miss Poole, our mild-mannered, grey-skinned, grey-clothered form teacher allowed any unopened bottles of the compulsory milk to go to the first to finish.
One cold, flat morning in September I moved up a class. My teacher was now to be Mrs Walker, a woman so stern-faced, so unwaveringly strict as to be used as a threat by the other teachers. She was a stout bulldog of a woman, her unwashed hair pressed tight to her head, dressed as always in a knee-length black skirt and grey twinset. As I picked up my pencil case, my set of twenty Caran d' Ache crayons in their flat tin, my English books with their spelling tests and essays entitled 'An Autumn Day' and 'My Ten Favourite things', to move up to Mrs Walker's class, someone whispered, ' She makes everyone drink their milk'.
One week after milk had yet to pass my lips. I started offering my small bottle of milk to any girl who would show me her knickers. After getting ripped off a couple of times by girls who failed to keep their part of the bargain, I worried I might have to start paying people to drink my unwanted white stuff.
'Can I have your milk if you don't want it?' asked Peter Marshall one morning break. So I said, 'Show me your dick first', and with that set a precedent for the whole term. None of the girls wanted an extra bottle enough to give me a quick flash, but the other boys were queuing up for it and perfectly happy with the deal. I think this was the first time I realised food could be a bargaining tool.
Nothing prepared me for how ill a bottle of milk could make a boy. Mrs Walker caught me pretending to drink my ration while waiting for someone to finish theirs. 'Come and stand at the front.' I put my milk on the desk and walked towards her. 'No, bring your milk with you. I've been watching you for days and now you are going to drink it in front of everyone'. Uncertain of just how much of the milk game she had seen, I half wondered whether she was going to make the girls show their knickers to the entire class.
I stood in front of the class, head bent down, my stomach flipping and diving. I worried not about the shame of being caught but simply that I was going to to have to swallow the wretched, wretched milk. Please God, don't let me have to drink this stuff. He didn't answer. 'Drink it all,' said Mrs Walker, her eyes narrowing like a lizard's in bright sunlight. I put the straw to my lips and sucked, sticking my tongue over the open end. 'We will sit here all day until you have finished every drop'.
It was a warm day, mid-September. The milk had been standing in its crate in the sun for a good hour before she sent Robin Matthews to drag it into the classroom. The tinkle of the bottles and scrape of the metal crate always filled me with fear. I sucked. A great bubble of warm, creaming milk hit my tongue, then filled my mouth. It was like vomiting backwards. I tried to swallow slowly but my throat closed tight and then something acid, almondy, welled up from my stomach.
The vomit came so quickly I didn't have time to move the milk bottle. The straw shot out across the floor the bottle fell with a clatter and I closed my eyes. Partly to block out the horror of it all and partly because I always close my eyes when I throw up. The puke spluttered down my green school pullover and onto the floor , it splashed the bottom half of the bookcase with its Conan Doyles and Kiplings, Sylvia Mountsey's satchel and a marrow on the harvest festival display. At least it missed my bare legs. When I opened my eyes there was milk over the floor, running under the radiator and Mrs Walker's desk. There was thin, milky-yellow vomit over my shoes and the bottle, whole and unbroken, had rolled under Peter Marshall's desk. 'Go and sit down,' she yelled, ignoring the fact that one of her students had just been violently ill down himself. She evidently intended to leave me to stew.
I skulked towards my chair, surrounded by a sea of shy smirks and dropped heads. I bent down to pick up the stray bottle. I got down on all fours and crouched under the table. As I stretched to reach the bottle, something moving caught my eye. It was a flash of three pairs of green knickers and Peter Marshall's dick, fully erect and waving back and froth like a child's flag at a royal walkabout.
PS. Nesquik was my parents' last ditch attempt to make me drink milk. Orange, strawberry, chocolate. The only thing that changed was the colour of my puke.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Beautiful Flash Games

Ferry Halim has built an incredible amount of simple, yet very aesthetically appealing and beautiful Flash games, which has rendered me totally awed and jealous. Sigh....just check out the very cute Firedragon game here. I like the mouse one too. Haven't tried out the rest yet.

Also see earlier blog entry "Flashy Taste of China".

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

See ma, what I can do with my hands?



Check out Brian Chan's Origami Page to learn more about extreme origami. The man can use a piece of uncut paper to do Wall-E. Very impressive indeed. Here's a picture from his website to whet your inquisitive appetite.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

FreeDOM programming

What is FreeDOM? (Free Document Object Model) is a web development technique used for creating event driven web applications. FreeDOM is designed to overcome the limitations of stateless HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) transmissions. In the article, Adam Smith compares FreeDOM with currently working web 2.0 concepts to show the benefits of switching to this architecture.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Are We Geeks?

Excerpt from "Geeks", p. xxx by Jon Katz (Warning: terms used maybe archaic - book was printed in 2000)

People email me all the time asking if they are geeks.

In this culture, I figure people have the right to name themselves; if you feel like a geek, you are one. But there are some clues: You are online a good part of the time. You feel a personal connection with Technology, less its mechanics than its applications and consequences. You're a fan of The Simpsons and The Matrix. You saw Phantom Menace opening weekend despite th hype and despite Jar Jar. You are obsessive about pop culture, which is what you talk about with your friends or coworkers every Monday.

You don't like being told what to do, authority being a force you see as not generally on your side. Life began for you when you got out of high school, which, more likely than not, was a profoundly painful experience. You didn't go to the prom, or if you did, you certainly did not feel comfortable there. Maybe your parents helped you get through, maybe a teacher or a soulmate.

Now, you zone out on your work. You solve problems and puzzles. You love to create things just for the kick of it. Even though you're indispensable to the company that's hired you, it's almost impossible to imagine yourself running it. You may have power of your own now - a family, money - yet you see yourself as one who never quite fits in. In many ways, geekdom is a state of mind, a sense of yourself in relation to the world that's not easily rewritten.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Free Java Mobile Phone Games and Apps

Visit Mobile Rated (or its WAP version) to download free games or trials to your handphones.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Marmite - not just a food spread

Was checking out some interesting research sites, when I came across this project, Marmite, from Jason Hong in CMU.
"Marmite is an end-user programming system for the web that enables non-programmers to recreate some of the functionality of mashups without programming. Users construct a data-flow from a set of operators. Operators are GUI representations of web services or represent operations the local machine such as filtering or scraping information off of web pages.
Marmite is different from other mashup systems such as Yahoo Pipes!, Microsoft Popfly, and Intel MashMaker because:
  • Marmite deals with both Web Services and screen-scraping methods of creating mashups.
  • The state of the data is shown at each individual step.
  • Fine-grain control and constant feedback between steps makes incremental programming possible (which shrinks the design/test/debug cycle).
Marmite is inspired by UNIX pipes and Apple Automator."

Monday, May 12, 2008

Wii Projects

Johnny Lee is very fascinated with Wii, well actually, the Wii remote. So far he has created the Low-Cost Multi-touch Whiteboard using the Wiimote and software (download here) and also built a multipoint grid software (a custom C# DirectX program) to work with the Wii remote (again) to track motion in 2D space.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Want to build a web app? Xampp's your friend

I forgot to mention this, but about two years back, when I started researching on my dissertation, I came across this open-source distribution suite called Xampp. It is really Dumb-Programmer-101 (I should know). It's all very simple, just download and extract. It will setup everything nicely for you.

And by everything... it offers distribution for the various OSes.
For example, the distribution for Windows 98, NT, 2000, 2003, XP and Vista. This version contains: Apache, MySQL, PHP + PEAR, Perl, mod_php, mod_perl, mod_ssl, OpenSSL, phpMyAdmin (I am also quite fond of this, as it is a useful web-based DBMS for MySQL), Webalizer, Mercury Mail Transport System for Win32 and NetWare Systems v3.32, Ming, JpGraph, FileZilla FTP Server, mcrypt, eAccelerator, SQLite, and WEB-DAV + mod_auth_mysql.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

I ain't sick of CoH yet!!!!

When I am bored, I play CoH (too often)...

When Will Foster from Kettering University was bored, he built a fully-functional (Note: to me, fully functional means can move and hit people) Panzer tank. Nice.

Out of mostly plywood, the tank runs on diesel and hit people with paint balls, golf balls and empty Red Bull cans out of its air cannon.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Career Suicide - Five Minutes to Kill (Yourself)

Finally a game that answers to my Needs. It definitely relates to how I am feeling at work.

Also check out Demon Tournament on the same site that also offers you Bible Fight. It's Inu Yasha.

(Im)mortal Combat

Check this fun albeit sacrilegious Christianity-themed game "Bible Fight" out. It is a Christianity-based Street-fighter style flash game, with some of your favourite characters from the Bible. Well, there is Moses, Mother Mary, Satan and none other than the man himself, Jesus.

Beware As heavy-duty on the computer resources as my blog. But just as totally worth the loading time as it. HAHAH

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Dynamically invoke Web Services

[Note: This is for .Net sufferers. Java sufferers, try SoapUI.]

My training course at NYP was not just a nice break from Hell. They also introduced this nice software for developers to dynamically invoke web services. For loser programmers (like myself) or laymen, this is great because this means that I can first see whether the web services are still available, then see how to invoke the web services to retrieve the XML data I want.

The nice software is .Net WebServices Studio. It's only available online as source code, as the old website that hosted it is down. Anyway, I have it with me (since I "borrowed" it off the NYP pc. Thank you NYP), so you guys can just get it from me, when necessary. But then I had some problems using it with some web services as it required me to switch on JIT compiler (to which I say, f**k off, since it is supposed to minimise my pain, not increase it).

So I went online and continued hunting, and found something even better. It's called SoapBits (current release is v1.1.1) by Erik Araojo. It's an improvement on .Net WebServices Studio (well, I'd say it is an enhancement, since its UI is similar to the former's). Note: Read carefully the instructions on how to download it from Easy-Share.com.

Flashy Taste of China

[Note: Must be able to read Mandarin]


Check out http://flash.qq.cn . It serves all the cute, fun and bo liao swf clips from our friends in China. I love it, especially those mini pyschological games .


Try this one "How fast are your reactions". It tests your reaction time. [It's in English]

Monday, March 10, 2008

Hate the Sounds in your Windows OS?

Then you are going to hate it more...

But you are not, because you are going to be damn impressed by these. Using ModPlug tracker, some dude built two songs, one using Windows XP and 98 sounds,


the other using XP and Vista.


Which do you prefer? I actually prefer the XP+98 one =]

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Woman == Trout????

"It's not about trawling, nor about skillful angling. It's about patience. Like tickling trout."

I was trying to figure out whether trout tickling, as told by the good doctor in Danny the Champion of the World. So I googled Trout tickling... Guess what?

I read that this guy is suggesting that a woman can be tickled like a trout...

"
The Facts of the Matter
Yes, this is for real. People do tickle trout. Allow me to explain. According to artist Charlie Murphy, "trout tickling [is] an apparently sensuous and extraordinary technique for catching fish which involves a hypnotic predation by seducation [sic]."
The practice goes back hundreds, if not thousands of years, and is probably the simplest method of catching fish. Well, simple in terms of tackle, at any rate. This would be a distinct advantage to one particular class of people, namely, poachers, for it meant they could stroll nonchalantly down a riverbank, unfettered by rods, lines or nets. The Lincolnshire Poacher would not want to be caught near the manor's river emburdened with nets and lines, the local constable would pick him out in a second.
Tickling trout (it doesn't have to be trout, but in the UK that's the popular choice of fish) requires no more equipment than most of us are equipped with, and a little perseverance.The method is simple. Find a river where the fish are plentiful, locate a point where they are likely to be feeding. Lie down quietly on the bank, with your arm in the water, and according to some, slowly move your fingers. At this point remember that your hand and arm will go numb, unless the water is warm.
Now for the patience bit. You wait, and you watch. And you watch and wait, and sooner or later, a fish will swim close by. Now the game begins. You slowly, slowly move toward it, because unless you are lucky indeed, you are unlikely to find it in the palm of your hand. The trick is to get to the point where you can stroke the fish's belly, tickle it if you will. Once you have it in this position, a quick scoop and you land your fish. Observe the hunting bears - they use just this trick to catch fish, flipping them out with practiced ease, and the hunters and poachers of generations ago learned that patience is the key.
And in fact, it's not just trout. Other fish were considered fair game, as an account given by a medieval poacher shows:
"...for the great desire I had for a tench I laid me down on the bank and just with my hands quite simply, and without any other device, I caught that tench and carried it off..."
Ah, I hear you say, you'd need a great deal of luck! Well maybe so, and maybe not. As Arnold Palmer (or was it Gary Player?) once said "It's a funny thing, the more I practice the luckier I get". Now go, and practice, and all the best.
Finally, Giles de la Bédoyère said in his Playing a Poem:
Sometimes the sun-kissed shallows
Can harbour basking trout;
You simply slide your hand down,
Tickle, then lift one out."

Thursday, March 6, 2008

The Tribulation Force is Strong??? (Disclaimer: this is a FYI, not a recommendation)

Non-believers beware! There is a new game in town, called "Left Behind" where non-believers of the Christian faith are either converted to Christianity or are mowed down by machine gun fire. Disturbing...

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Learning Physics the "Phun"ny way

I think I may written too many papers. I copied the following words from the website, and then I tried to paraphase and reference the site....

Hard core.

Anyway, Check out Phun, it is built by some guy for his MSc project. Quite cute. Learning Physics in a 2D with cutesy imagery. It's supposed to teach you to be creative....

"Phun is meant to be a playground where people can be creative. It can also be used as an educational tool to learn about physics concepts such as restitution and friction.
Phun was coded in C++ using OpenGL, GLEW, SDL (for window management), SDL_image (for reading images) and boost, including boost_filesystem. "

Get Phun.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

How to really annoy your friends with a YouTube clip on your blog

YouTube enables a number of parameters by appending data to the URL of the video file.

First copy the embed code from YouTube















If you want to autoplay and loop the video, just add "&autoplay=1" and "&loop=1" respectively, behind the url (see below). src="http://www.youtube.com/v/FQpJMJDAFHE&autoplay=1&loop=1"

Friday, January 18, 2008

You like to eat Cake?

Hi folks,

Now there is a relatively new development framework for PHP (you know, like prototype is for javascript?) . It makes developing a web application so much easier, esp because it uses a lot of OO patterns, like MVC etc.

Have a slice of CakePHP

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