Wow, an atas place is so different from any bourgeois shit.

Didn't blogged recently because sehr beschäftigt sigh. Even some of the posts were scheduled stuff from the weekend, as you can obviously tell.

I was in a rotten mood yesterday because I had to stay back until quite late for Arbeit. So I demanded  my favorite gemütlich dish, Korean Ginseng Chicken. At that hour of the night, the nearest place before closing time was Holland Ville so we popped over to Hansang for a quick meal.

We parked at Merah Saga, you know where I had my lovely lunch at Bistro Petit Salut. Then I remembered that little shop on the corner that sells beautiful cookware. They even had the layout I wanted if I could afford a nicer kitchen. *swoon* Ah I could immediately feel my spirits lift at the sight of all the colorful dishes (it's weird what makes me happy nowadays).

It has such a beautiful storefront, nicht wahr?

Thanks to my taking the photo in such a clandestine manner, I wasn't able to capture its true spirit

you know a place is atas when they take the trouble to print the logo on the brown paper

B1 is so sweet!!!

B1 got me the loaf pan I always wanted. You know I had a lot of problems finding this pyrex loaf pan which I need because I am using a microwave oven to bake my bread. I couldn't find a glass one, so I was really happy to hit pay dirt and find so many at this shop! =D

I took the tallest one I could find. My bread can only go upwards now!

TGIF Specials 19: Bier, Heroic Beverage

Floral Arrangement 101?

Damn, I just realized they were also selling white roses...

While Tante and I were at Chinatown we discovered a stall that was selling all flowers at S$4 a snall bouquet, and S$10 for three. I wanted to buy all lilies (my favorite -> calla lilies) but Tante said that it is Chinese New Year so she grabbed red carnations. Sigh. Anyway so I bought some yellow flowers (I thought they were daffodils but apparently not), the carnations and my white lilies. Because I forgot to bring my new apartment house keys, I left the flowers with Tante and grabbed them the next day when I visited her for New Year's. 

I thought her arrangement was kinda cool? Like an eagle. 

So I brought them home. I was thinking that the carnies kind of overwhelmed the lilies, so I swapped them out into two small bouquets. I am not good with this but I tried my best =D.

I think they will be prettier when they bloom

A quiet episode in a somewhat hectic day for Prince Poopy Pants

Later, restored, meiner Neffe took out my toy Wombat in a scene reminiscent of WWE.

Crispy thin Pizza

Read 你不饿? Nibblezware Munchies.

Firefox

I was inspired by this painting I saw on etsy. The original is so "i want to squeeze and hug you" kind of cute.

Mine looked preoccupied because I was thinking of something while painting it. Sigh. So I added two dots to "Japan-anime"ize it. Unfortunately now he looks like he is thinking of something sad instead. What the f...

Fire engine red

I am thinking of something...

for once it pays to have bad eyesight.

[image source: sankakucomplex]

take off your pants (just kidding) spectacles and take a look between the lines. I wanted to censor  in case she is not decent but apparently my eyesight is not that bad enough. sigh.

If you still cannot see, enlarge the image. 

Frohes Chinesisch Neujahr euch alles

This took me a while this time, because I boo-booed and forgot to save the stuff I did the other night. Had to redo, in fact some of the links have been changed. Enjoy!!! Happy Chinese New Year... boy am I glad that the bloody Rabbit Year is going to end...

I thought it was funny...

The recent India Special on Top Gear got a lot of heat because many people were upset at the pretty childish pranks that the three old unwise men pulled. I thought it was funny. It definitely took a lot of effort to pull the banner just right so that the words will appear correctly.

I started shrieking when I saw this... I thought it meant thy hair downstairs. Apparently it also means 鲍鱼 *chey*

Though I must say that for the rest of the programme, their antics weren't funny. The shots of the roads were nice, however I do not have the burning desire to visit India like what I had for visiting Halong Bay after watching it on their previous special to Vietnam.

My belated Christmas present finally came from France!!!

First of all (and lest I forget) Merci Beaucoup Karirin, for this wonderful present!!!

It took a very long time (even longer than my later present to France which took about 2 weeks over Christmas and New Year) but Kari's Christmas present of the long awaited Vanini Vanina ist hier!!!

Bloody Amazon, I was muttering some evil thoughts about Amazon and the Singapore Post Office, and checking my mail almost everyday. But now that it is here, I could almost kiss that horrible phone operator, who was bloody annoying to me last Saturday (I was almost tempted to tell her where to shove her "you should have asked your friend to use registered mail"). I am really liking 2012.

This will be the first dual language book I have in French and English. I have only those in Mandarin and English (being too super lazy to read Mandarin). Haha.

Something interesting is happening in Gotham Singapore City

I was trolling on EDMW as usual, when I saw an intriguing post. The TS suggested that one should try googling this...

2 sqrt(-abs(abs(x)-1)*abs(3-abs(x))/((abs(x)-1)*(3-abs(x))))(1+abs(abs(x)-3)/(abs(x)-3))sqrt(1-(x/7)^2)+(5+0.97(abs(x-.5)+abs(x+.5))-3(abs(x-.75)+abs(x+.75)))(1+abs(1-abs(x))/(1-abs(x))),-3sqrt(1-(x/7)^2)sqrt(abs(abs(x)-4)/(abs(x)-4)),abs(x/2)-0.0913722(x^2)-3+sqrt(1-(abs(abs(x)-2)-1)^2),(2.71052+(1.5-.5abs(x))-1.35526sqrt(4-(abs(x)-1)^2))sqrt(abs(abs(x)-1)/(abs(x)-1))+0.9

Natürlich I did, and got this.

Google seriously has a bone to pick with me. Bloody hell. Everytime.

But anyway try it. I was pretty amazed. It was a Big Bang Theory (the show, not the actual) kind of thing.

Updated!!!

Google has its panties in a tight wad. I was trying to show *censored* the graph, and discovered a new error thrown by Google, ""x" (and any subsequent words) was ignored because we limit queries to 32 words."

Oh too bad.

For all of you who were curious what the above formula is about, it is actually the Batman Formula. If you ran the search on the above formula, you would get a Google graph of something like this:

Chinese New Year Flowers @ the Nursery

I was running ragged yesterday. I dashed home to pick up my Dad's electronic scale (to make my Love Letters and bier brot), then to the library then to two supermarkets and one market. 

When I returned to the new apartment, Mutter called to say that the Tante (her gardening friend) was heading to the nursery near the market garden and told me to meet them at 1.30pm. So I drove like a devil to the nursery only to find the Tante hauling chrysanthemums. 

I love flowers. Their brilliant colors and variety reinvigorate me the same way that paintings can, though at a less disturbing way. Their vibrant beauty is simple yet comforting. I could stare at them for hours (technically I did because the Tante bought a lot of flowers even after I was done).

Discouraged by the stupid avian neighbors and petty thieves I have at the apartment from buying blooms (they tend to have nest-friendly leaves) and my own laziness when it comes to watering, I stuck to replacing my poor thyme plant and buying a pretty oregano as well. I also found a pretty white white bracket which would allow me to keep the herbs inside the house and out of thieving hands. I was so happy when the uncle pointed it out to me (it was on another shelf) after I said that the only black one he had left was rusty. 

They are selling lots of orchids and lime plants. But I cannot upload the photo of the lime plants because Mutter was in the shot and she was wearing an expression just as sour as the limes. Sigh.

 More pretty flowers. =D

Mrs HerrmanMeier's friend's doggie

I took this photo because he reminds me of Mrs HerrmanMeier's friend's doggie. But I realized belatedly I had interrupted him in mid-shit. No wonder the tense stance. Haha. Sorry Mr Poochie san.

Aren't the flowers pretty? I think I will buy some after Chinese New Year, when the prices go down. But truth be told, I don't think they will last long in our heat. Actually these plants are all driven down from another nursery in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia.

I bought two chilli plants, oregano and thyme and a leafy lime plant. I also bought the pretty bracket, which I discovered could not fit in anywhere except off my bathroom wall. Lame.

I am going to bring my Lemon Basil over from the other house

I was super glad that I bought the bracket because later in the night there was a super bad rain howling outside the window. I had fears that it was going to blow out my netting which I put on my plants to discourage the thieving birds. But B1 refused to let me go out into the bad rain.  

This morning we came out to examine the damage. The bloody rain destroyed my poor corn plant which I had been very carefully cultivating for the past few weeks, surrounding it with netting and a box frame. Even the box frame could not protect it from the wrath of the angry torrential rain. I could cry. 

Deader than a doornail

I brought my new chili plants out for a little bit of sun tanning

All is right in Nibblezwareland again

B1 punishes me for my clutter by dumping everything he finds on the floor in the nearest plastic bag he can find whenever he cleans the apartment. So while sorting out the rubbish, I discovered my missing S$50 vouchers. It is like Christmas all over again!!!

You see I was infuriated with myself for losing those vouchers some weeks ago. I had brought them along with me while I was shopping for gifts but I did not use them for others' gifts as it would be very insincere (but trust me, I was kicking myself for not doing so when I couldn't find them)

Being of sado-masochistic by nature, I spent the days thereafter mentally wailing on what I could have spent the vouchers on but now couldn't. Like "aiyah, should have bought such-and-such a thing with those vouchers."

So far I have decided that I could have spent them on:

A Pyrex loaf pan

Lots of can openers (for that dog that B1 won't let me have)

Groceries
Li Lien Fung's A Daughter remembers (since B1 bought the wrong book)
A 18''X36" canvas
Acrylic paints
German books natürlich.

Now that I have gotten them back. It seems that I should have wished that they multiplied in their absence (did I mention I am also greedy?). However I do have Bär's present to spend with my 10% membership card. *Keke*

Shoes are very unhealthy for the wallet

I am Madame Big Foot. I needed some new court shoes after wearing out my last pair (I also note that someone stole my pretty ones with the big red flowers. Good luck to him/ her...), and given how cheap my shoes are usually, there is no point in re-heeling them. I dropped about S$100 for 4 pairs, and now that they are stacked together, I realized I might have overdone the black color. Still they should be quite serviceable and last me hopefully a long time.

It was a very stressful day and after buying my 3rd pair, I felt infinitesimally and instantly better.

Updated
Arghz I wore the grey pair for the first time on Thursday. While I was walking back from my meeting, the ENTIRE SOLE came off. So embarrassing! Just then three statuesque transgenders walked past me, I felt their sympathy, which definitely made it worse =D.

Annoying lady at Anna Nucci almost didn't want to repair/replace the shoes for me, then later her manager took over the call on her own accord, which I appreciated. Later when I got to the shop, I realized that it was the manager who sold me the shoes. Anyway they said they would repair/fix the shoes and get back to me within a week.

Updated!!! (6th Feb 2012)
Anyway Anna Nucci most considerately called me this morning so that I could rush down during lunchtime to get my new shoes. They replaced the entire pair and after I checked through the shoes, the saleslady checked them again. =D
 
Restored my faith in the brand again. Anyway the two pairs on the right side of the photo are Anna Nuccis.

Updated!!! (13th Feb 2012)
Argh. Spoilt again! I am not sure whether it was because I was wearing them in the rain (first of all, February- hottest month in Singapore, suddenly there is a downpour. WTF.), but the damn left sole is doing the same thing the right sole did the other time....

I think it is time to visit the cobbler who sits at the bottom of my block to fix these shoes. It boggles my mind why the same purple pair of the same design doesn't spoil but the grey ones are so horrible. It is as if they came from a different place.

A dream I had

Just before I woke up, I dreamed (note: this blog is following Amerikaner Englisch) that I woke up and discovered I had a lot of emails from all my friends. 1 from NN, 1 from MB, 1 from K, 1 from HM, and the rest from my non-COH friends. I was very happy... and then I woke up. I know one of my new year's resolutions was to have lesser expectations of others' kindness (I tend to expect too much of others so it makes me very disappointed and later angry. I cannot help it because loyalty is #1 to me and I can't forget easily even if I forgive readily. I especially hate people who break promises or fuck with me generally) but I could not help being sad.

Reluctantly I opened my email (out of habit), knowing reality is never the same as dreams, but still hoping.

I discovered that I had emails from HM and Frau HM. Relief then happiness again. They were super sweet during New Year's. I had stopped writing to them, because I was very upset and stressed in the last week of 2011, and I didn't want to spread my emo via the emails, which I am wont to do, though I doubt my German is strong enough to be able to do that well. They actually wrote me. I almost cried.

Dragon Year at the Library

I saw that the library was giving out free angbow packets again this year, so I shamelessly dragged my long-suffering *censored* there with me. He stalked the place like a lost wraith while I perused baking books (my obsession with bread will never end, given the therapeutic pleasure I derive from pounding the dough). I think I have last year's bunny rabbit design somewhere. Must go and dig out. I realize that if the library keeps printing, one day I will have the full zodiac set. 

Sehr Goldig, nicht wahr?

In another story, I was hunting for my Essential German Grammar, because I wanted to check on the nominative, akkusative and dative (I used to complain about the gender of the German nouns but I now know that the prepositions are way NASTIER)... after checking the whole house, I went to search my library records, only to realize dummkopf me has returned the book by mistake yesterday. &%#@

The Thing about Romance Novels

Yes, I am reading more nowadays, since CoH is a bloody dead town (I don't think I can ever stop grumbling about this). It's either German books or Kinder Buch or Romance Novels or non-fiction. So you know what I will end up reading after a day of frustration.

Sometimes romance novels are such a pain, they have such explicit covers, and god knows what that uncle is thinking about when he smirks across the bus at you as you hold up the book, reading. Case in point, this book I am reading:

Seriously do we need a bare chest to know you are going to talk dirty between the covers *haha*? I had to hide at the backseat on the bus. Which is an irony, considering the stuff I post here... I had a rattling headache by the time I reached home, and the book still unfinished, which was a mean feat (considering I am a speed reader). This is why I prefer the older romances, which hide the dirty picture immediately behind the cover. 

Review for this book is on Romance Novel Reviews.

Going to Suzuki book 4

Teacher (yes the guy who I trashed in this blog for "sabotaging" me at the violin exam last year) looked at me and said "Book 4. There is a vast jump from Book 3 to 4."

"Yes", I muttered (I was in my very tired, emo elmo self last week)."I can tell because the 豆芽 (bean sprouts, meaning the notes) seem to be a lot more and closer now."

I am not very excited about going to book 4 because I haven't passed Grade 3 (which I still intend to take but not this year) and my violin still sounds like five fat angry cats dragging their claws across a chalkboard. At least I can take comfort that now I can at least play Elgar's Salut D Amour, my favorite piece. 

Mutter was sitting outside my room just now and she remarked that my violin seems to have improved. Yes, it is like my German. Nobody helps to correct me so I end up hitting the wall like a blind mouse. Now and then it sounds correct but you know I will never become fluent. Sometimes I want to fucking kick myself for not taking up a third language when my PSLE results allowed me to do so. Now I end up struggling to catch up on something that would have been easily learnt and available to myself so many years ago.

I forgot to mention the other reason why I was so angry and tired at last week's lesson was because I apparently did not place my bow well in the box, and this idiot at my *censored* went to hit my case (for fuck sake use words, don't just hit my bloody violin case) while asking me what was inside. For this breed of morons, I usually will reply it is a bomb, but given the nature of my *censored*, it is not a joke to be easily uttered without repercussions. Still, fuck that moron. I went to class and discovered I broke 4 FUCKING STRINGS in my bow. *heart pain*

Tales of the Migratory human

I was rushing two books over the weekend (I am consumed by too many activities outside of work and having two homes make me displace books at a greater frequency), "Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools - Tuck into a slice of Andalusian life" and "A Table in the Tarn".

"Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools - Tuck into a slice of Andalusian life" is an drolly-written adorable account by Victoria Twead on her Five-Year planned life with her retired military husband in a remote village, tucked away in Alpujarra mountains, Spain. 

The book is full of fleshed out characters, even the chickens she ended up rearing for the benefit of the village (everyone appreciates fresh eggs straight from the chicken's ass) had decided personalities like ahem Cocky the bantam cock which reared his harem like a dictator and made love to them like Pepe Le Pew. My favorite part has to be about the Equators (read the book to see who she means). "As for me, I had the added bonus of watching Eduardo who posssessed buttockes like two golf balls in a sock. Joe cottoned on to what I was transfixed by and got very huffy wtih me, desptie my inistence that I was just watching the work in progress.Soon after catching me gazing at Eduardo, I noticed Joe was suddenly keen to show his strength... Joe ran to help them and shouldered the beams, ignoring the fact that the Equators were half his age and possessed double his strength. The result? Joe's back seized and he was forced to rest in bed for several days. I consoled myself by watching Eduardo from behind, uninterrupted." 

Despite being a very thin book, Chickens, Mules and two old Fools was entertaining from cover to cover. Not an easy task to accomplish as I am a fussy reader.Googling for the book cover made me discover that the author actually had some archived articles about her life in Spain, something like Michael Wright and c'est la folie.

A Table in the Tarn is more of a cookbook rather than a jolly recount of French rural life, though Orlando and his partner, Peter, bought the building from a farming family and converted it into a elegant B&B or Maison d'Hôte, Manoir De Raynaudes.

The book is très elegant and sophisticated, totally different from the other book. Orlando described briefly the work he and Peter put into acquiring the Manoir and touched on a typical day at the maison and its kitchen, focusing the work they put into giving every customer a unique and wonderful experience. On hindsight I would say that this book is more like a narrative advertisement for the B&B. Lets face it, the book, with its beautifully taken photos, is an excellent souvenir for the obviously affluent guests to buy at the Manoir's gift shop as a memento of their visit.

I would say read the first book for amusement and the second book for envy of a better life. 

Cinnamon Buns

Read full post @ 你不饿?

Geek Love - B1 and the harsh reality

Should have known I couldn't enjoy Geek Love with B1. Despite my misgivings (I thought that the same jokers who came up with that horribly addicting "Jersey Shore" *though I seem to be free from their clutches since that disastrous Season 4 which sent me to zzz* would be exploiting the geeks. We are not marginalized, just that our hobbies are much more interesting than picking up lame shallow people at bars in a bid for free sex), the first two episodes were sweet and funny.

So I rewatched it with B1, in between making my Cinnamon buns *love*. First he pointed out that episode 1 and 2 were actually filmed at the same event, which I did not notice. So he was BSing me all this while on his "not being very observant"...

Then he asked "do geeks really like dating other geeks?"

What an offensive question, seeing that he is one and I am another. He said I wasn't geeky enough (well if he got me my elusive Linux Penguin). Just tomboy. Whatever...

"Geeks are like other men, they all like hot girls, but since hot girls don't like them unless they have a lot of $$$, so they would have better chances with gleichgesinnte girls, because they would understand their needs and hobbies." I replied dourly, glaring at him as he hogged the soup bowl (we were having dinner at the time).

He evil-stared me when I said I thought the geek in the Tardis shirt (he reminded me of young Stalin, but I would love to lawnmow his ugly beard) was very cute <-my type~! and couldn't understand why Kelly preferred the kindisch Ironman Sal. I mean yeah, he was at the Harry Potter event too, but Junge Stalin is so much more handsome and if you remove the Ironman outfit, Sal just looks like a teenager. I was very annoyed when Sal chose Mary over Kelly (I could relate to Kelly *she read while waiting for her date* and also to the poor Wookie guy). 

B1 pointed out that while Mary was fleshy, she was slimmer than Kelly and knew how to dress, which proved my earlier statement. He liked her punky hair style and red lipstick too. Maybe it was the Ironman panties she wore...

I totally dig Ironman Sal's date with Mary, I thought that it was my kind of date. Arcade and yum yum and maybe a movie. If only he went and caught her a Rilakkuma at a UFO machine, it would be the ultimate date.

Just to prove what a realist B1 is sometimes, he didn't even finish watching episode two but started cleaning up the dishes when he found out who were the eventual "Perfect Match" couples. Why? Because the women were not hot enough to hold his attention. *Annoyed*

Calling all starving developers

If you are free this weekend (Friday evening to Sunday night) and still hungry, take part in Codesprint by Interviewstreet (a programmer database startup)

Participants will receive a set of engineering challenging and basic coding questions on Friday night and the participating tech companies, such as Skype, Apple, Zynga, etc, will recruit from the leaderboards. Remember fastest, most efficient code wins.

It is starting in 20hours time. Good luck!!!

Sample Question (from Interviewstreet):
Card Shuffling (30 Points)
Here is an algorithm for shuffling N cards:

1) The cards are divided into K equal piles.
2) The bottom N / K cards belong to pile 1 in the same order (so the bottom card of the initial pile is the bottom card of pile 1).
3) The next N / K cards from the bottom belong to pile 2, and so on.
4) Now the top card of the shuffled pile is the top card of pile 1. The next card is the top card of pile 2,..., the Kth card of the shuffled pile is the top card of pile K. Then (K + 1)th card is the card which is now at the top of pile 1, the (K + 2)nd is the card which is now at the top of pile 2 and so on.
For example, if N = 6 and K = 3, the order of a deck of cards "ABCDEF" (top to bottom) when shuffled once would change to "ECAFDB".

Given N and K, what is the least number of shuffles needed after which the pile is restored to its original order?

Input:
The first line contains the number of test cases T. The next T lines contain two integers each N and K.

Output:
Output T lines, one for each test case containing the minimum number of shuffles needed. If the deck never comes back to its original order, output -1.

Constraints:
K will be a factor of N.
T <= 10000
2 <= K <= N <= 10^9

Sample Input:
3
6 3
4 2
5 5

Sample Output:
6
4
2

Art speaks to me

This piece totally screamed at me. I felt like one of the tiny little bodies that make up that mountain of salarymen.

Porn Star Sex anyone?

I unearthed this when I was packing up my books. I think I bought this during one of the MPH sales (or was it the Borders sale?). The book was shrink-wrapped to every inch of its tiny life and it was only S$5, so I thought why not?

After taking this photo, I read a bit while waiting for my turn to play (*psst* don't tell the rest of the guys in CoH). My god, it was boring like hell. I was expecting some naughty pics at least, but it was boring line after boring line. The only thing they said, I already know from watching the documentary "joys of teen sex" zzz. If you ever see this book, don't buy it.

Learning German the Mandarin Way *Hilarious*

I bought this book when I was at the Chinese section of Kinokuniya, buying Kari his Chinese-French dictionary. I laughed when I saw the title "Don't be a nuisance, I am a German Learner book!" If you think this cover is hilarious, wait till you see the French one. Same title but has a piggie on it. =D

Check out Elijah peeping around the monitor. Sehr Goldig!!!