OS Fanboys & their Impressions of other OS

From Joey Devilla @ GlobalNerdy and The Adventures of Accordion Boy in 21st Century. I especially love Linux fanboys' supposed view of Windows.

Statue of Liberty shows Godzilla who is Boss

Enid Blyton's Enchanted Wood

The National Library used to be very hardball on poor Enid Blyton's books *Note here: I hate those trashy ghost-written ones that churn out every year under her name*, citing that her books were rather unsuitable for the young as they were racist and fantastic. Ahem, why stock Fantasy books in the first place? I could never find them growing up and had to save and buy them myself. Poor me with my miserable allowance. No wonder I used to be slimmer. All the snacks I had to give up to pay S$3.90 for one.

What is even more hypocritical is that now I can find the even more trashy 老夫子 comics in the shelves. To illustrate how trashy they are, my mother, who didn't really bother to cultivate my reading habit, FORBID me to read that particular fascinating comic. I didn't even bother saving for them because she would confiscate them. I think I finally got them back when I was in JC?

Anyway back to Enid Blyton. My absolute faves were (1) The Enchanted Wood, the Faraway Tree series (2) Famous Five series (3) Mr Pink Whistle (4) Galliano's Circus series (5) Behr Rabbit series *thought this was a bit Roald Dahl, like Fantastic Mr Fox*. I think my girl cousin liked (4) *cos I borrowed it from her, and liked it* and Cherry Tree Farm, while my boy cousin liked Mr Meddle (he had the whole series), Naughtiest Girl in School series, Noddy and Secret Seven. YUCK!!!

I detested Secret Seven, because I thought it was EXTREMELY SEXIST. I mean it annoyed the hell out of me and I was only ten years old (I started reading when I was nine). The girls' role seemed to be providing sustenance for their endless meetings, and the annoying person in the book was a girl (was it Susan or Sue? Oh, it's Susie after I GIYBF) whom I think was vilified and the gang was very nasty and cliquish, with their badges and shit. The boy leader, Peter, is a smug little asshole, and all the boys got to do the really exciting stuff, while the girls stayed at home. It's like, harlo, check the calendar already!!!

But I loved the Enchanted Wood. I loved the idea of having traveling lands on top of a magical tree, and even the slides down Moonface's *ahem* hole is a sensational and cute idea with the bunny at the bottom to collect the cushions. I loved the food they had especially, the cookies with the honey centre and Toffee Shock! In fact, I loved it so much, I downloaded the entire series into my DS Lite. Keke. I think that is one series that I am quite willing to read till the day I die.

I have decided. I would like to have EVERY SINGLE book that Enid Blyton ever wrote. So friends and family, if you ever want to get me a present ever again? Just give me tons of book vouchers. Much appreciated. Otherwise, please click on my Adsense and/or Nuffnang adverts so that I can buy them (I have only earned $4 from 2 blogs, how pathetic is that? And I had so much traffic on Tail Chasers before I moved here!!!!). Viel Danke!

The Weather Girl

This sounds very bizarre but have you heard of the weather girls?

Not perky little ambitious twenty-somethings (I am starting to sound very old...) who shake their tushie as they tell you which region is experiencing heavy downpour but the Sunshine Girl, the Thunder and Lightning Girl, the Stormy Girl and the Human Glacier, etc. (I cannot think of anymore at this moment). Before I wax lyrical, I think I should define what they are:

Sunshine
Happy-go-lucky, cheerful and effervescent girl. She doesn't think very hard about what other people think about her, but she gives her all all the time.

Stormy
The promise of tears almost everyday, but not quite. She's very emo and sensitive. She sucks the patience out of you, with her neediness and attention-seeking.

Thunder and Lightning
Always angry and aggressive. Like lightning, she smites you hard and fast, like thunder she roars in unexpected moments. Just like thunder and lightning, she forgets her anger very quickly after she explodes, and all is calm, until the next time. Which comes very quickly.

Human Glacier
Beautiful and unapproachable, she keeps everyone at arms length. She is either vilified for being a ice queen or sought after as a ice queen. You desire her attention, and get excited when she deigns to cast you a icy stare. You are afraid of making her angry. She doesn't get mad, she only gets colder.

This is a very fascinating topic that I had come across in the office when one of the male colleagues confessed that he was looking for a Sunshine girl in his life. I am not quite sure how many of these Sunshine girls there are around, and I think that there is no such thing as a PURE Sunshine Girl. In order to pass through emotionally crippling Singapore educational system, one's innocence is and tends to be torn to shreds very easily, from all the subtle (or not) bullying, competition and cruelty. IMHO, a pure Sunshine Girl has to be slightly mentally off-balance in order to be that cheerful even when facing obstacles. Most of the time, one encounters the fake Sunshine Girl. A girl may appear Sunshine Girl to you because she wants to and you haven't done anything to piss her off. I mean who will smite a friend for no apparent reason and it's not exactly very conducive to one's popularity to do that.

As I am typing this, I recall now. There was an apparent Sunshine Girl in my Junior College. She was hugely popular with the boys and hugely unpopular with the girls, poor thing. She might have been a real Sunshine Girl but the nasty comments on online forums and voting boards (this is why I hate social networking sites) definitely tarnished her glow. One asshole started this voting board where they wrote about fantastic relationships among schoolmates, which is very tiring, especially when it is not true. She ranked No 1, together with her very own stalker. *yup she had a stalker in her same class, who stole her socks from her schoolbag in the lab. Now that I know what it means, EWWWW!!!* She still tried very hard to appear cheerful and happy, but you could see that she was trying too hard to rise above the situation.

I think a Singaporean Sunshine girl is at least 30%-40% Stormy, 20% thunder and lightning, and at best 50% Sunshine. A Singaporean girl cannot tolerate lack of attention, which they deem as neglect, which is a problem, because most Singaporean males work and play very hard, and may not have that much attention to spare. As I listened onto my colleague's description of his Sunshine Girl (who turned out to be his Mother, thirty years younger. That is another topic, which I will post later this week), I wondered and opined that such a person is more likely to come from Malaysia, our neighboring country.

Despite being a Singaporean female, I can appreciate why local men especially love Malaysian Chinese women (a male colleague recently proclaimed his preference because they are hardworking. What are we? Boiled Liver? *raised eyebrow*). They are quite resilient and emotionally self-sufficient. They are the epitome of what Eleanor Roosevelt's description of "a woman is like a teabag. You never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water". I have noticed that women in slightly less affluent countries (this may not be in reference of Malaysia) are stronger and tougher than the men. They work hard and look after the family. But as the nation becomes more developed, the woman's role diminishes with the heady distractions of vanity and superficial ambition as the higher educated she acquires too much self-worth to a point of self-centredness, becomes dissatisfied with her lot and just expects much more from her partner. Kind of the reverse of "ask not what your country can do for you, but you can do for your country", if country is your home, for this context. Which is kind of sad.

First come Marriage, then comes Baby Carriage, but where comes Love?

Women, as their age climbs towards the dreaded 30, can hear the sound of their biological clock going louder but slower. As one of my classmates once told me, she did not see the point of a long relationship (she has never been in a relationship, H, L or B), but rather she expected herself to meet someone SUITABLE and get married within two years and commence procreation.

In local Singaporean girl context, this means that she more often than not, starts planning the ROM and traditional wedding less than one year into the relationship (Singaporeans, particularly the Chinese, follow this really stupid trend of blowing their wallets up at hosting their wedding banquet at a four to five star hotel ballroom. The industry is grateful.).

This means that the focus of such a relationship is not love, but children. A thirty something woman knows that she has to start quickly or risk her or her future children's ill health as an older first mother. She also knows that men who are geared to the same biological objective, will not choose them over a fertile twenty-something. Woe betide the sophisticated well-to-do forty something woman. She hears the clock even as loud human traffic flows and ebbs around her. She swiftly switches to matchmaking, because that is the best way to find a man who is committed and interested, like her, in having children.

She meets someone the agency and she later, deem suitable and they start a relationship. Knowing they are not getting younger, they marry quickly and immediately try for a child. If they are not successful they try religious, scientific methods to help them along.

They have the child they craved. Around three years since they met. But this will trigger the cracks in the relationship. No longer distracted by the excitement of the wedding and impending arrival of the firstborn, they settle into a pattern where if they do not continue to be attached and committed to raising their children, they will notice that the other half's faults more and more. He doesn't pick up after himself. She only has time for the child. He is spending too much time on the computer and not helping with the housework. She starts having headaches in bed.

Since their love is superficial, in comparison to their love to the fruit of their loins, it is difficult to remember why they fell in love. They "fell in love" because it was time to do so and they happen to share the same one thought at the same time, which was to procreate. But now that they have achieved their biological mission, there is no guarantee that they need to be responsible enough to ensure that their children grow up with both loving parents. Modern society has made it possible that single parenthood is no longer a taboo as it used to be. A single parent is now seen as one of the norms and while the parents think that it is perfectly alright to be apart and raise a child in a happier single household, instead of an angry, tense two-parent household, the child grows up feeling the deficiency somehow, which manifests itself in terrible or undesirable consequences later.

Very coincidentally, Daily Mail ran an article called "How women in their 30s put having a baby before love". Sobering but true, it reflects the modern woman's psyche towards men and babies.

Make your Own DS game!!!

Make your Own Nintendo DS Game (from Wikihow)

Daily Mail Celebrates Christmas with CSI

Part 1 Part 2

Sure Decadence - How to Get Rid of Christmas Leftovers

To prove what a decadent and sloven society we live in today, instead of bringing leftovers home, we stuff ourselves there and then with this evil but so fun game called "终级密码" (Guess the Number), thus reducing cleanup and leftovers but increasing girth and misery.

What happens is this, someone will decide on a number X within the range of 0 - 99. Then the next person will guess the number Y and then the first person will confirm that Y == X or reduce the range to the Y and the upper or lower limit. Then this continues in a round robin fashion, until some doofus guesses it correct.

To speed things up, we had the "winner" and the two persons on his/her either side to consume certain leftovers, e.g. share one slice of watermelon, instead of merely "punishing the winner".

After a few rounds, we discovered this was not as fun as if we make only the two persons on either side consume the leftovers. After all, isn't it more sinisterly fun to guess it right, not have to suffer and get to sabotage the two persons next to you?

Most Popular Presents that Acquaintances/ Colleagues Give

This year, we wrote down what we would like to receive for our Christmas presents, which was a blessing because otherwise we would end up with these:

1. Photo Frames (the annual fave)
2. Mugs
3. Vouchers!!! (which I chuck somewhere, and I forget where they are. Where is my Kinokuniya one??
4. Key Chains / handphone accessories
5. Towels
6. Wine/Alcohol
7. Puzzles
8. Silver Jewelery [I am guilty of this]
9. Desktop Ornaments
10. Small Soft Toy [I am also guilty of this]
11. Chocolate [updated in 2012]

Predictable but useful and affordable, nicht wahr? Did I miss out anything?

Fröhliche Weihnachten!

Nibblezware wishes you Merry Christmas!!!

I am sensing that I don't drink enough water. This year I got 2 mugs and 1 water bottle. Hahha.

I finally got my DS Lite which I was supposed to get for doing well for my Masters (sounds weird huh). After mugging for two years, I decided not to claim it as I figured that I could use the time better for reading books, or my other hobbies instead of spoiling my eyesight. Besides I only wanted it because I was paranoid about my brain age. The present I most liked were the German story book I wanted and the kitty vacuum cleaner.

James Cameron the Ultimate LOOTER

Initially I did not want to watch AVATAR, being mistakenly convinced that it was smurfs + Planet of the Apes. But the cinema is boring during christmas time, and we didn't want to see a rat slapping her furry butt and tell us to put a ring on it.

Turns out AVATAR borrows heavily from red indians (or ozzie aborigines, based on ur neighborhood) + computer networks + George Bush and Iraq + worship. Though I detest LOOTERs (People who suffer from Lack of Original Thought), I have to say James Cameron is saved by his imagination, but not logic. A wet match can still be lit? Among other stuff that I am too tired to ask. I don't like to question my entertainment too much.

AVATAR is a four star act, though the traditional killing of the resident bad guy was a little too drawn out...

I cooked and I baked

Who says women cannot multitask?

For three hours, I prepped, cooked, baked (washing up took another hour, haha) and packing up Top Chef-like for my office celebration while thinking about how to resolve my application problems.

I made vegetarian bolognese sauce (smaller pot on the left) and nasty nasty bolognese sauce (big wok on the right). I was paranoid that the vegetarian one would have no taste, as my colleagues are strict on not consuming onions and garlic (my two great faves), so I dumped in diced carrots for sweetness.

I also baked my cupcakes again. I was happily cooking while my cakes rose in the oven. This time without topping with the diabetes-inducing cream *gag*. I deliberated whether I should bother making a glaze, then I thought, zzz more important. So I decided to let them be topless *keke*.

My topless cakes turned out even better this time. I tried some new tricks I learnt from books, while adding 5g more to each cup.

Cupcake Toppings

Orange Jus Cupcake Glaze (from cupcakerecipes.com)


Ingredients

• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 4 tablespoons orange juice
• 4 drops red food coloring

1. Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir until smooth.  Place a wire rack on a baking pan or over wax paper to catch all of the dripping glaze.  Turn all of your cupcakes upside down on the rack so that the bottoms are up.
2. Spoon the glaze over the bottom of the cupcakes.  I even used the spoon to spread the glaze evenly over the bottoms.  Dry 5 minutes and repeat. 
3. Let the glaze set for at least 15 minutes before turning over to frost the tops of the cupcakes. 

GREEK YOGURT TOPPING (from souvlakiforthesoul.com)

• 100 g of good quality strained Greek yogurt
• a good splash of vanilla extract
• 1/2 a cup of icing sugar

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together creating a well in the centre.
2. Mix all the wet ingredients thoroughly, whisking with a fork.
3. Add the wet to the dry and MIX UNTIL JUST COMBINED.
4. Line a 12 cup muffin pan with some paper liners and scoop in the mixture making sure to leave a bit of room on the top for them to rise.
5. Bake in a pre heated 180 deg C oven for about 20 mins.
6. Muffins are ready when a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
7. Remove from oven and let them cool in the tin for 5 mins.  Remove and let them cool completely on a wire rack.
8. To make the yogurt topping whisk in the icing sugar with the vanilla until it becomes a little thick.  Place in the fridge as it will be easier to spread later.
9. Once the muffins have cooled spread with topping and top with shredded toasted coconut.

Raspberry frosting

Whisk remaining 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, and 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon peel in small bowl. Spoon half of icing over 6 cupcakes. Whisk 1 tablespoon raspberry jam into remaining icing.

Y I say Facebook is Evil - Asian people. Very Big on Karma, Revenge and Goals

[source: Lamebook]

A very vengeful Asian boy gets back on his sister after she got him in trouble with their parents for having a 12-pack in his bedroom. 12 pack == 3 months grounding => sister must pay. So he went to dig in her closet and found her Hook-Up List complete with deadline and all. And uploaded it into Facebook and tagged all her friends and "recipients of her love".

Asian people. Very Big on Karma, Revenge and Goals. 本是同根生，相煎何太急 my ass. FYI, V-card supposedly means virginity, though it looks highly doubtful on whether she still has any to issue.

Click on the image to see the sordid story in its entirety and the reaction of friends and victims.

Why do People Love?

English translation of my Mandarin article <<不在乎天长地久，只在乎曾经拥有>>

My cousin and I used to enjoy using fortune telling to predict our future, particularly that of our future partners; his wealth, his wisdom, his looks and how much he would love us.

I remember that I had asked my cousin what she felt was the most important of these four factors.

She replied "his love".

Unfortunately, today's society is a realistic one. One cannot survive on love alone. People rely on first impressions, and value money, power and capability. You can profess your love for your beloved, but you cannot guarantee that he/she would reciprocate. Love at first sight is now a thing of the past. The bullshit about how looks, height, weight and money not being factors weighing in on love is used to encourage lonely souls to seek their other half, not as a means of defining love nowadays.

Love is as deep as wisdom, as prized as beauty and as priceless as wealth. Even if you experience love today, can you ensure your forever love? Why is love so difficult to harness?

Today he treats you like a prized jewel, tomorrow he seeks another and treats you like garbage. You can be gracious and watch him walk away from you, his hand in another's , leaving yourself to a life of loneliness and sorrow. You ponder, the human life is but a few decades, sooner or later you must leave each other. Even if our love is dated, at least I still have my memories of us together.

But why? Why do people still try? Because humans are like mandarin ducks, they desire to be able to have someone else accompany them through life's ups and downs. A person comes into and leaves this world alone. but just like he was welcomed by his loving parents when he was born, to be able to depart this world in his beloved's arms would be a privilege not easily fulfilled, but so much craved.

If one does not love, one will never be able to achieve the all-encompassing love.

Purchasing Power Up => Food Expenses Up

I wanted to try the 汤师父 owned by 永顺 in Jusco Tebrau City for a while, always stopping to flip through the menu whenever I walked past to enjoy a fleeting feeling of luxury. Yesterday while Town Mouse and I were in JB, the Country Mouse decided to treat the Town Mouse to a truly atas meal, that was supposed to be good for the health, albeit bad for the wallet.

Walking into the cafe restaurant, which looked really small from outside, I was pleasantly surprised by the pleasing decor of the inner section which contrasted greatly with the sales counter and cramped tables outside (see picture 1) . I even had to gingerly step past the free chairs 永顺 was giving away with the purchase of a dozen bottles of birds' nest or shark's fin on my way in.

We decided to not order from the set menu but try the ala carte. Since I was the one treating, I had the dubious honor of choosing the items, haha, while Town Mouse steadfastly refused to touch the diabetic-faint guaranteed-worthy guava slices pickled with preserved lemon rind (yucks!!! at RM2 a pop. 永顺 really knows how to keep their cashflow flowing with gullible customers like us. I feel bad for the local clientele.)

I ordered broccoli served with wolfberries, "abalone slices" (one taste and I realised that it was tako slices), fresh and dried scallops, braised meat with wood ear (木耳), the pièce de résistance Buddha Jumps Over the Wall 佛跳墙 (at RM70 a 2 inch deep bowl, which looks deceptively deep...), brown rice, and red dates (红棗) boiled in a sweet soup with dried longans （龙眼）， hasma (雪蛤), to be washed down with strong pu-er tea (普洱茶).

Town Mouse complained that the abalone in the 佛跳墙 was tough. After much scrutiny, I realised that it was a canned abalone and not the rehydrated dried kind, and thus concluded the 佛跳墙 was a bad deal, though the soup was quite lip-smackingly savory. Perhaps I have, as often opined by Vater, been spoiled by my parents' cooking. My mother would painstakingly soak the dried abalone (tiny little blackish ones that look ominously like cheese pies, no wonder EDMW refer as them thus) for days to rehydrate them properly before boiling them with dried scallops, kampung chicken, dried shitake, fish skin (鱼皮), etc. The rest of the dishes were the usual kind served in good chinese restaurants. I refused to touch the sweet soup, since swearing off all things frog a long time ago since I discovered a styrofoam tray of frog legs in the freezer one day(looking too much like the legs belonging to a bunch of white chicks lying on beach chairs, trying to soak up the sun).

All this came to about RM130.

Cheating Bastard Husbands and the Clichéd Lines they say

I dedicate this article to all the cheating bastard husbands out there (read: Tiger Woods), the whores who fall for their clichéd lines, and the supportive friends of said whores who don't bother helping them see their ways.

1) I am still living with my wife but we are leading increasingly separate lives.
She is still looking after my needs, but I am no longer her top priority, i.e. she is no longer at my beck and call, because of the kids, new job, etc. My fragile ego cannot take the "neglect".

2) I am going to leave my wife for you.
He is most likely to say this when you have his dick in your mouth (the only time you have power, for more reasons than one). And no, he is not. He is already comfortable with what he has. A wife who looks after his needs, and a mistress (read: you) on the side to keep him from sticking in the rut. Besides, he would have done it many whores ago. Even if he leaves her for you, he will sooner or later leave you for another woman. And you will totally deserve this bad karma.

3) I love you.
Oh no, he doesn't. If he does, he'd not make you the third party to his marriage. He would have restrained himself, divorced his wife then come for you. Cheating men do NOT respect or truly love any woman. If they did, they wouldn't cheat.

4) My wife doesn't understand me, like you do.
You actually don't but you agree with whatever he says, because you are a whore who agrees with whatever he says, because (1) you envy other women for having a relationship, so you take their men, in the hopes you can have one too (2) men and their egos love fanning, and you are just laying on the air-con. (3) he will find someone else who agrees with him, if you don't.

5) I can't divorce her because ...
He can't divorce his wife because he can't lose his maid/roommate/backup sex partner (depending how pathetically little respect he has for her, especially since he is already cheating on her) for slow nights. Who is going to look after him when he is sick, listen to him crap about his shitty day at work, run errands for him, be the bad guy for him, and make sure he and his progeny get proper nutrition? Not you of course, he just keeps you around for sex.

6) We do not have sex.
Read: We do not have enough sex

Washing My Dogs

其实你不懂我的心

You can try to adapt it to be violin-playable by referring to the saxophone chords.

原站

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The Town Mouse and I went to watch the "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year"  concert on Saturday night at the Esplanade. The singing was alright (didn't come together very well at times), nothing to write home to Mother about but  my god, the really low niveau of professionalism by the three choral troupes (namely the Singapore Lyric Opera Children's Choir, Youth Choir and Opera Chorus)?! Ok, most of them were kiddies, but after having the conductress walk off the stage twice to bring out the missing kids for the numbers is a bit too much. Cute the first time, but after the second time, only the indulgent old French couple behind me could chuckle (I was doing my old "jackpot machine" eyeball rolling). I mean couldn't the Opera Chorus folks who weren't singing in those particular numbers help out with the timing and setup? They couldn't even figure out who is supposed to be standing where.  The pianist and her page turner forgot the music score for one song, which is kind of pathetic because it's not like they were playing throughout the concert. Also the conductress kept flipping throughout her book for the next song. I mean, can't you already arranged the pieces in order?  There is the fucking programme. If I can read it before the concert, you can damn well sort out the music scores beforehand.

No matter what trash talk I can dish about my old choral conductor, I could at least say he was worth every penny the school paid him. Of course he had plenty of help from our tyrannical TOC who made us practise walking up and down the platforms in our high heels FOR HOURS. She refused to let us stomp off like elephants and wanted us to prance up the stage in our "at least 2 inch white" court heels. No mean feat considering that we numbered >80 chatty noisy girls.

I finally comprehend my teacher's efforts in doing so, and making us smile for hours while she glared at us offstage. She would yell the errant party who forgot to or wasn't blinding people with a brilliant smile. She did nail us our first SYF Gold.  The whole point of having a concert is to let the audience enjoy your music. If most of you looked like you were sucking on lemons, which they were last Saturday,  the audience isn't going to appreciate it very much.

Since I used to be from a choir and have experienced combined concerts, I can totally relate to how it might be difficult to synchronize everyone's schedules. But we could still do it then, and we were teenage amateurs, so I don't understand how a troupe aiming to become " one of the best opera choruses in Singapore and the region", could screw up one event so badly. Perhaps because I didn't have my pre-concert dinner that's why I was feeling so catty (irony is, my cousin was there with his girlfriend, and he had even meaner words to say), but damn the event was pretty bad. The only cool thing was admiring the fantastic Lachino (Chinese woman with a very nice Latin American woman-like ass), Lynette Tan, whenever she sashayed out of the stage after presenting the upcoming numbers. 

All in all, pretty bad. They did not make full use of Esplanade's acoustics. I think I can get more from a S$10 ticket to some secondary school or junior college amateur choral production.

Saturday Munchies 13 - Blue Orange Cupcakes

After staring forlornly at the Christmas-themed cupcake display at the Crystal Jade Cakery for way too long last week. I decided to check out the hype.Guess what, went to two libraries, and only managed to borrow one book on cupcakes (on the other hand, I was able to borrow three very lovely Chinese books on patisserie baking. Nice.)

Luckily for my cynicism. I had already checked out some recipes on the Internet. I decided on the Lemon Cupcake  and the  Butter Cream Frosting [both recipes from CupcakeCreations]. After buying the ingredients (and later realising I forgot to buy lemons, and then that we had lemons in the house after all), I got down to baking cupcakes. I tweaked the recipe somewhat, first using metric system and then, the practice taught by my Home Economics teacher who kindly gave one-on-one lessons to a lonely geek during recess. This practice was to separate the egg whites and then whisking them to a thick foam and fold them in, together with the flour, into the creamed mixture. While happily folding, I realized I forgot the lemon rind, so I swapped with orange rind...

As for the butter cream, I only added blue coloring to the recipe, which turned out a very fun color. 

Orange Cupcake

Ingredients

90g softened butter

90g softened cream cheese

2 tsp finely grated orange rind

90g superfine(castor) sugar

2 eggs

68g all-purpose (plain) flour

45g self-raising flour

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160oC.

2. Separate egg yolks from egg whites. Whisk egg whites into soft peaks

3. Beat the butter, cheese, lemon rind, sugar and egg yolks until smooth and creamy.

4. Sift the flours. Add the flour gradually to the cheese mixture and beat on a low speed, until just combined.

5. Fold egg white into mixture. Divide the mixture evenly between the cake cases. ( I even weighed them!!!)

6. Bake for 25 minutes until firm to touch.

7. Allow to cool for a few minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.

Why Google Wave is DOOMED

I feel bad for Google. I have been trying the Preview for the last few days and it's a bit of the Big Brother for me. On top of that, I couldn't get anyone to take the 23 invites I have left (I only invited my techie friends, cos I thought they were more likely to be interested). And no one wants to talk to me on the sandbox. *sobs*

And the complaint is the same, we cannot untype what we are typing, i.e. conversation participants can see what you are writing right at the moment of writing, and you cannot correct it. Which is very dangerous...

This is Why You are FAT

Yes, literally there is a site called This is why you're Fat.

I have been awed, flabbergasted by the sensational calorific dishes uploaded by my fellow fans of fat. This is my especial favourite, because I love bacon!!! This is Bacone, which is a bacon cone filled with scrambled eggs and country gravy topped with a biscuit. Looks yummy right.

There You Be - Pearl Harbour Violin Score

原站

绿岛小夜曲五线谱 Green Island Saxophone Solo (Violin playable)

 原站

This is the song that prisoners in movies love to hum with their harmonicas. This song has often been associated with a political meaning, as the real Green Island was used as a place of exile for Taiwan's Kuomintang's political prisoners from the late 1940s.

http://www1.gdjyw.com/jp/09qupu/qiyue/

SNL with Blake Lively - An Accident-Prone Tiger Woods

Extremely Funny!!! Nordic beauties are gorgeous and so strong.

Feeling the Wave Part 1

Well, I got into my Google Wave account, and it looks damn fine. = d Must cut back on Company of Heroes and concentrate. Focus!!!

PS. I notice that IE is not supported. Funny =D Anyway I noticed that they are trying to play DnD 4ed in the wave. *Home away from home feeling* FF does not support drag-and-drop. You need Chrome for that (not very portable).

Things that are happening in Google Wave Land (will update as I go)
Google Wave itself
Wave based IDE, Wavid (think: Eclipse)
Google Wave robot Twiliobot(read more: http://googlewavedev.blogspot.com/2009/06/twiliobot-bringing-phone-conversations.html)

Michael Bay + Supermodels + Victoria's Secret = OTT Advertisement

My latest pathetic effort

(This is taken from my old blog, stinxatcoding.blogspot.com)

I wanted to redo the Tail Chasers blog. The focus on the site had always been to get content out to readers, especially other members of the gang (of course *haha*), so I stuck to the plain but serviceable design provided by Blogspot.

So on Saturday, thoroughly sick of drawing little girls, I drew inspiration from two online pictures of my favourite anime doggy, Menchi メンチ from Excel Saga. Unfortunately notoriously 3-min-degree me lost interest in redoing the layout, and ended up creating a persona out of it.

It's still being approved by the POC, so once it's up, I will post the link to the gallery. Any support this SAP (sad artist/programmer) is greatly appreciated, even though my menchi looks very kitty-like. In the meantime, this is how it will look like in your browser.


FYI: Learn how to install and personalise your Firefox with Personas here.

Help! I cannot keep up with Google!!!

There are too many fun stuff going on at Google as well as at my own side.

Too many distractions. I have hardly enough sleep as it is. I couldn't figure out whether I should concentrate on Android, Go or Google Wave dev.  These are the three I hold most dear, because (1) I want to develop Android tools and games (and hopefully get some $$ out of a hobby at last) (2) I fear it will replace Java lang for Android (3) I wanted to develop a multi player game on a wave.

Even blogging has become a problem, especially since I had to leave my Tail Chasers blog (I can't even put down the link for fear of GIYBF) and therefore I lost all the hits I had,  which was pretty maddening on top of the mocking that I am not above reacting to ( I did try for two weeks to be a bigger person, but with my OCD, I became even more upset with the latest posts, e.g. comments, frequency and content). So I have been spending many days trying to get hit by Google, and I admit at last that I am obsessed with getting hits from Mountain View, Cal, which I can track with my Wowzio widget.

I got a developer account at Google Wave some months ago, but because I have too many code names I have forgotten which one was the one I used to sign up to Google Wave Sandbox. Up until last week, when my ex boss who loves to show off how more plugged in he was into the latest IT stuff, than  me, (who is competing???),  told me triumphantly that he has the latest preview Google Wave account, I had not logged in since I had locked myself out.

"Oh, I have a developer one." I answered tiredly. When I was telling Town Mouse about it, Town Mouse was like, "you have a developer account?? How come you didn't tell me?" Seriously, did no one read my stinxatcoding blog? Turned out it was a big deal to have a preview or developer account at Google Wave, because Google was stingy with accounts. I did not know that. 

Town Mouse asked me to invite him. So I tried to login to both Sandbox and Preview. Well, after I asked the administrator to unlock my Developer account, I searched for hours for my invite to the Preview account. While I have been reading the emails going into my gmail account, I had not been seriously following the development at Wave.And now I have been left behind, sobs!

So latest reprioritisation of time:

Latest Project

Wave

Android

Think I will leave Go to the experts, who will hopefully build a Eclipse equivalent for Go by the time I am ready. =B

Congratulate the Terrier Yip!!! for moving on

It was driving me nuts. I had to do something. So I did.

On another front, I noticed that Google has now has this changes.g (oh crap, it's go) that tracks the updated blogs on Blogspot. Disturbing... but so lovely to read (I hate it when bloggers don't update their blogs regularly or hide their entries. For the former I suggest, Get a Life, and the latter, Get a Diary.). Say for example, I am still trying to figure out whether this girl has turned lesbian since breaking up with her boyfriend...So distracting. Keke. I was also the delighted new audience of a new malay blog which featured  Kesha's Tik Tok (haha, I tot it was a black chick singing this song...).

Magazines are put on hold for the time being. Thanks for thy patience.

梁山伯与祝英台（梁祝）小提琴独奏谱 Violin Solo for Butterfly Lovers

This is the famous "Are you going to Die, Die already become Butterfly, Butterfly fly so high in the sky,You die I die, everyone cry." Star-crossed lovers who met when she and her maid pretended to be boys to be educated, and he was her classmate. But her father who had behaved very progressively in the beginning, made her marry another man, and then her lover pined for her so much that he died. When the bride was collected in her sedan on her wedding day, she requested that her wedding route included his grave, where she threw herself into his grave (which somehow opened up). Very creepy. Especially when two butterflies suddenly rose up from the grave into the sky.

原站

Da Pinchi Code

Excerpt from Daily Mail article "The Burglars' Code: Criminals chalk messages which pinpoint targets for other villains", 2 Dec 2009

Burglars are scribbling chalk marks outside homes to let fellow criminals know which properties to target.

The symbols - dubbed 'the Da Pinchi Code' - may indicate that a home is wealthy, has already been burgled or may have nothing worth stealing.

Police have revealed the signs are being drawn outside sprawling homes in advance of them being targeted by criminal gangs. Detectives released information on the plot yesterday after a number of properties across the affluent Tandridge district in Surrey were targeted in recent weeks.

 

Being Kind and Thoughtful to a Girl May Not Help You when Wooing Her

Upon reading back on my earlier entries on BGR, I realised one particular landmine in the rocky road to a budding romance.

So a while back, my male colleagues declared that they would be especially nice to the girl they are interested in (refer to Points 1 and 2 especially). But unless you are usually a big arschloch to the womankind (I have been privy before to the intriguing rehabilitation of a misogynistic geek to the charms of a beautiful programmer. Sad to say, it did not end well.), it may not be immediately obvious to the girl, leading to chaotic consequences; (1) She thinks you are a nice guy, i.e. hell would freeze over before she ends up with you, unless all the bad and exciting men have died somewhere somehow. But she will find you when the latest bad man in her life treats her like crap, which will be pretty frequent. (2) she thinks you are nice to everyone (but she doesn't like you more than as a friend) and mistakenly tries to introduce you to her single friends who will also favour a bad man over you. (3) A vulnerable, fragile she falls head over heels in love with you, or thinks that she is, leading to a very bad ending where she will either fall out of love with you, or her husband/lover/ boyfriend/ current bad man will kill you. This is a especially scary situation if you don't like her. (4) She thinks you are gay (especially easily misunderstood for metrosexual and very SNAGGY guys) (5) she is already open to having a relationship with you => your success rate using this method can reap potentially significant gains.

Notice my final point. The assumption is that she has to be already interested in you or is open to having a romance (could be anyone at this point), in order for your being kind and thoughtful to work. Oh yeah, I digress here a bit, if you have been a super shy guy or nasty piece of work to all of womankind, it will also be very hard for you to get her. Note: being bad to your girl is ok *hate to say it but treat them mean, keep them keen does work most of the time*, being bad to every girl is not ok, you will gain a nasty reputation and women are gossipy.

I  feel for the extroverted guy who is nice to everyone. Because he is fair to all, acts of particular kindness will be taken for granted by the target because she and everyone else expects that of him.  Worse still, if he is successful and gains a girlfriend, she will (1) forbid him to be nice to other girls to prevent scenarios 3 and/ or 5, as mentioned earlier, because she will never feel secure in the relationship (2) quarrel with him all the time, also because of the same reason, leading to a very short-lived romance (3) be the nice to everyone kind of girl, and he will have to beat other guys off with a stick.

Goodbye Mininova (and SceneTorrents)

Starting from today, only approved publishers are allowed to upload files to Mininova. Thanks to a Dutch court ruling that Mininova has to remove all links to ahem torrents within 3 months and face the consequences.

I would like to offer my appreciation and thanks to the Mininova team for the excellent work they put in for the last five years (Thank you for doing so up until the very last day of the three month deadline). To the courts persecuting Mininova, Pirate Bay and the rest of the torrent sites,  I say... I love the challenge. I guess there is finally a advantage to being slightly multilingual.

Saturday Munchies 12 - Fun with Sushi

Remember that I got a child-friendly sushi maker at the AFA09?

Well,  yesterday being Saturday and all, I decided to make sushi. Not before making the hapless Town Mouse chase all over NTUC looking for my slighly more exotic sushi ingredients, jelly fish, chuka hotate, crab stick, zucchini (dear boy bought me organic zucchini, because he couldn't find the usual GM kind *haha*), pickled radish and stuff, while I burnt my pot of carefully prepared rice (because I was too lazy to watch the fire, and went back to play the no-brainer yet addictive Delicious - Emily's Holiday Season).

I made some miso soup with radish and kelp, in case the sushi turned out to be disgusting.

The first roll made by my sushi maker.

Despite the mishap, there was plenty of rice left, unfortunately Town Mouse didn't want to eat much because he was so starved he ate Vater's leftover chicken (from his chicken puff pie endeavour the previous day) before I could finish cutting everything. So there was a lot of rice left, so I made some pressed fried rice. Haha, I call it pressed fried rice, because I actually stacked up everything in the bento box then remembered that I hadn't taken a photo yet... Please ignore the disgusting piece of seaweed lying like a carcase on the rice. It insults my sense of aesthetic, but was dumped on by Mutter who couldn't stand waste. If it had been me, I would have made a lovely .i. shape of it. Keke.

This reminds me, I bought some udon noodles for my breakfast, and I haven't used it yet!!!

Backdated Ancient Nihonjin Porn Article - More on the Ole Hero Shigeo Tokuda

This geriatic Japanese pehpeh, Shigeo Tokuda, was previously featured in Tail Chasers. I couldn't leave my old man behind. So here is the article again, with even more fun pictures from other sites such as Nippon Sekai, Weird Asia News etc.

The story is that the retired salaryman wanted to indulge in porn (that specialised in kissing??? Is it...) twenty years ago, since his wife and him are leading increasingly separate lives.While he was fascinated with the plot (yes, Japanese porn actually has slightly better constructs than its American counterpart.), he was too embarrassed to buy it off the shelf, so he went to the source itself (not the porn actresses, but the production company). Because he was such a frequent visitor *keke*, he made friends with a director, who saw the increasing demand for ancient nihonjin porn, and invited him to star in one two years later...

Now 75 years old (one year on from that article), he is still happily pounding away on  young chicks and old ladies alike or ordering the former to have sex with other men. The kind of life many men would love to live. I know I would (but not the latter act, cos that would be stupid). (The best part of it all, his wife and grown daughter love to do the Japanese polite Ignorance-Is-Bliss tactic. To them and everyone else, Daddy is a part-time actor... *grin*)

Vater's Munchies @ My Destructive Hand - Chicken Puff Pie Becomes Bun

Vater was making chicken puff pies on Friday, when I walked into the kitchen for a drink. Being my usual destructive self, I decided I wanted to make my own version (see bottom right of picture, the one with the satay-stick-holed heart. Vater's are the three on the bigger plate). Instead of making many thin layers to simulate puff layers, I was lazy and just flattened the pastry out into a very thin layer which I used to envelop the chicken + onion and celery+carrot+potato mixtures Vater had prepared earlier.

Viola! My Chicken Puff Pie turned out to be Chicken Bun. 挂羊头卖狗肉!!!

The Latest Obama Girl

I deliberated for a while whether to spread this viral hit, especially since this latest Obama girl is so adamant on her blog that she doesn't want the attention that international media is given her. Btw she became well-known after she attended Obama's town hall session at Shanghai Science and Technology Museum.

Well in that case, she shouldn't have worn such a teasing red coat and sexy black number and sat in such a way that accentuated her curves. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

The best part is when she said in her blog that " I never wanted to go into the entertainment circle, therefore I rejected many TV stations' offers and contracts."

Haha, of course not, she probably wants to venture out of China. Maybe nail a rich old media mogul and be settled for life. Check out chinahush (it has even more scintillating shots of her).

Updated!!!
Her name is Wang Zifei (click name to see blog url)

Maid Momoko offers her penciled Love

I was inspired by my rewrite on the maid cafe experience that the moment I woke up I drew a new little girl in pink. This is the second time I am drawing in pencil after Gordon the Gopher. I was told by one of my colleagues when I showed her my earlier version (as seen above in the header, and was drawn in Microsoft Paint) that she wasn't emoting enough like those real Japanese drawing >.<. But as typical as beginners go, I realized my booboo after I finished that I should have drawn from left to right to spare the pencil mark smudging...Anyway I decided to upload her before I start coloring.

Isn't it so coincidental that I decided to name my little girl as Momoko, when pink in Japanese means Momoiro, 桃色? Keke.

Updated!!!

I realised stupidly after staring at the picture more closely that Momoko's arms seems long, almost reaching her feet. While it would be desirable for sit-and-reach, she probably resembles an Orang Utan...An especially bad idea since I am not trying to dedicate to our beloved Ah Meng.

Japanese Maid Cafe - This is How we Love to be Served

@Home Cafe maid cafe is one of the most popular maid cafes in Japan. They have two branches at Akihabara. But they were too crowded, with long snaking queues, no joke when we were in the dead of the winter and we were exposed to the elements. The other branch is located inside the Level 5 Don Quixote.

 The map I used to go there is not updated. Sigh. And worse still, I forgot to use landmarks. I ended up going around asking "Kokowa doko desu ka?"

We ended up at the Cos-cafe. I thought the food was good when I visited the site that's why we went there. It was quite empty. The food was hahaha, an experience. So was the encounter with the pretty maid. Btw you cannot take photos of or with the maids (exception seems to be given to Caucasians), you have to buy a copy.

Speaking of the maid, she welcomed us in a super cute voice, but since our Japanese is crap, we were like "huh?" Three attempts later, she then spoke in surprisingly guttural English "Come here." Like Igor donned a pretty girl suit. =D

I have to give her points for trying. She always tried three times in cute Japanese before doing the Igor. But sadly we did not get to have the maid experience much, unlike the pehpeh next to us. Using one cup of 600yen tea, he managed to get three maids to SQUAT (with their legs closed demurely together) near his feet next to the table talking sweetly to him, at different times for about 30 minutes each (I timed them). We spent 3000 yen and had some really bizarre dishes, which I will upload later.

The three cafes below are @Home, St Grace Court (defunct), and Cos-Cafe.
2012 edition (much improved):

2009 edition:

Updated!!! (6th Feb 2012) Use this site to search for maid cafes in the region you are visiting. maidsan-i (with BBS)

System Error 1058 has occurred. The service cannot be started.

System Error 1058 has occurred. The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it.

It means close your Services Terminal (services.msc). You have it open, that's why your Tomcat cannot start a new Tomcat.

Note: This happens when you are trying to reinstall Tomcat and you didn't clean it up good the last time. Also read Project Dream.

月亮代表我的心小提琴五线谱 Moon Represents My Heart Violin Score

就由了老师所说的，用中国网站下载小提琴五线谱真方便！=D 我不知道为何心血来朝而下载了《月亮代表我的心〉〉的小提琴五线谱的。我们来分享吧。

原站
另外网站

Updated!!!

Amateurs, pls also check out Dr Hsu's site for more unique modern-day musical scores.

Twitter Twitter 1 - Hellish Exercise this morning

Violin case + Bag full of 4 library books, 1 15" laptop, breakfast, water bottle and a music book + kitten heels + 8 min before the bus comes and it is on the opposite side of the overhead bridge and I am still at home== bloody horrible running episode. Talk about jiggling the fats.

I almost snapped my ankle when dashing after the bus. Felt the impact shoot up my leg. And then I realised I forgot my laptop charger...

The German Kitty says "Miau"/ Die Deutscher Katze sagt "Miao"

While searching for my S$15 book, City Mouse managed to find me a S$5.95 German children book at Kinokuniya. *Jaw Drop*

Fantastic. Anyway in a bid to encourage everyone to learn languages, here is a link to Goethe's Book2 website which supposedly lets you download 100 mp3s per language? But you have to buy the complementary books.

Nibblezware's Fav Links this Week!

What we bought at the Festival

As I was saying, I was quite undecided about buying the Lucky Star figurines, but that we did buy one or two items?

This is what we bought.  I bought him a cute little doll which is supposed to nod or shake her head at whatever we say. Haha, just check out the written description. "Unazukin is a forest fairy who loves listening to the talk of other peoples." Doesn't it look like it's describing a busybody who loves gossip? The kind of girlfriend I like. Keke.

B1 bought me the sushi maker set (of course being high-maintenance, I hit him up for the  bigger one, which is more expensive by S$10 and can make even more fun sushi shapes. Those Japanese think of everything. => )

The 85% Good, the 5% Bad, and the 10% Fugly Cosplayers @ AFA2009

No worries, only the best of Anime Festival 09 made it here, either because of their memorable outfits or their sensational looks. I know what my audience wants... but I decided to even it out to keep you reading to the end. Just to tantalise, there is 1 pretty girl-next-door kind, 3 rather sexy and the rest. In any case, I admire their courage and sometimes ingenuity in wearing and making these outfits respectively.