CNY

CNY is just looming around the corner, its ang bao time again. hahaha. Well just had my reunion dinner with Mum's side yesterday. We went to Jumbo seafood at Tanah Merah Safra for dinner. Dinner was great, super filling with lots of seafood... Had a great day, we started off with bowling, and my uncle wanted to up the stakes said that we should pool in $10 each, so the winner of the round gets everything. Of course he won, damn. I was pretty unlucky, wasted my strike or I would have had a chance of topping the table. In the end I came in second. After bowling was dinner and followed by KTV. As usual, KTV became sort of a personal concert. Don't know why the kids are all so shy to sing, the same goes to most of the adults so I was sort of singing song after song to entertain everyone. It was until the end that the kids were more into it (because my uncle told them that they would get $5 for every song they sing, haiz the sad truth).

Well something more interesting happened the other day, I was asked by jteam if I wanted to help out to be an usher for his new movie, "Ah Long Pte Ltd". Of course I agreed, and it was so fun. Basically we had 2 sessions, one at the press conference, at Inter-continental Hotel and the second movie screening at Vivo-city. At both sessions we had to act as the henchmen of Fann Wong, so when she walks the aisle we had to raise the fake parangs. It was pretty funny, especially at Vivo. People around us were frightened when we took out the parangs and walked around the mall. And the best part was, we even went to celebrate someone's (some passer-by) birthday. The crew was great, very fun-loving. The down side was the grumpy bus driver, we forgot to take our stuff and he kept shouting Joey. He was so rude, come on, its his job to be driving our things around, so just do it lah. Even if we ask you to drive over a thousand times, you'll still have to do it because thats your job. So quit grumbling. Yup after the gig, we were treated to view the preview screening of the movie. Overall, the movie was ok, not that fantastic but about the same standard as all of Jack's other movies. The malaysian accent was very strong and Mark was pretty funny in the movie. But still overall I wouldn't rate this movie very highly, maybe just 2 1/2 - 3 stars. Just watch it when you really don't have any other better things to do.

Cream Puffs

Yoyoyo, Okie to kick start my recipes blog, I will now give everyone a recipe of making cream puffs. I've done them myself and they turned out great, they are very easy to make and these will be making their way to my friends' home this CNY.

Cream Puff Ingredients
1 Cup Water
1/2 Cup Butter
4 tbs Sugar
1tbs Salt
1 Cup Flour
3-4 eggs

1 Cup Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 tbs Custard Powder
2 tbs Sugar
1 tsp Salt

1. Puff: Preheat the oven at 180 degree celcius. Combine the water, butter, salt and sugar into a large pot. Bring this mixture to a boil on medium heat. After the mixture starts boiling, turn off the heat and add the flour to the mixture. Note that all the flour should be added in one go. Once the flour is added, stir the mixture with a wooden spoon until it forms a yellowish dough. Continue folding the dough a few more times.

2. Transfer the dough to another bowl and mix the eggs in one at a time. Ensure that the dough mixture returns to a smooth consistency after the addition of every egg. (Note: if the dough feels too wet after the 3rd egg, just skip the 4th egg).

3. Drop the dough mixture on a baking tray, making each puff about 1 inch wide and 1 inch high. Ensure that some space is kept between each puff as the puff will expand a little during the baking process. Bake the puffs in an oven 180 degrees celcius for about 25 mins.

4. Cream: Add milk, sugar and salt into a saucepan and heat the mixture up on low heat. Stir the mixture continuously to prevent the bottom from burning. When the mixture starts to bubble and cuddle, add the custard powder into the milk and stir. Continue stirring until the custard becomes much thicker, add a little more custard powder if required. Once the consistency is attained, put the custard into the fridge to cool.

5. Cut the puffs in half, the inside of the puffs should be hallow. Spoon a portion of the custard into the puff. Put the filled puffs into the fridge to chill. Serve them cold (well I like them cold, but its really up to you to decide), you can also dust some sugar powder onto the top of the puffs to give them a nicer look, a little snowy effect.

Cooking Ma Ma

Hey dudes, my Wii is coming home soon. Going to collect it a little later, finally I can start playing all the fucking games that I want, wahahahaha. And one of the games that I've ordered is cooking ma ma. haha. Which comes to remind me, I do like cooking and baking and stuff like that, so why not I turn my blog into a cooking recipe heaven. So from now on, I will try to update this blog with some recipes of foods that I like, and also include some of the stuff that I made myself. So cool rite. I'm so excited that I think I'll start immediately after this entry.

Back again

Yup, my dearest and favorite brother (okie, I'm kidding its just that he's my only brother) has come back from the US. He's supposed to reach at around 6.30am this morning, so my dad told me to check the flight at around 6. So when he woke me up this morning and I went online to check (now that T3 is open, we gotta check online for certain flights, which terminal the flight he'll be landing at), and to my horror his plane had already landed 45 mins ago. So I quickly woke my mum up and we hurriedly rush downstairs to meet my dad, who will be driving us there.

Although I didn't get to stay in T3 for long, but the glimpse of it left quite a good impression. It really does look pretty good, I really have to go there one day to 'explore' the terminal. Right now the place is still a little confusing, not knowing where to go and where is everything, but I think after a few times there, all these will be sorted out easily. Well anyway, my brother was already at the airport, luckily Huiling arrived a little earlier than us, so she was accompanying him. Oh yah, when we reached the arrival/pick up section my dad was told by some SIA staff that we cannot wait there (imagine that, we cannot wait for 5 mins at a pick up counter), which I thought was quite crappy. It totally defeats the purpose of having a pick up counter. I mean if I was there, I'll probably have tried to get a reason out from the bugger. I mean a pick up counter is meant for people like us to pick up our loved ones and then leave right, but sometimes when they are sitting in the terminal, it may take a few mins to walk out. So it only makes sense to allow for short waitings right, its not like we are going to park there for a day or something, crap. Anyway after that we went for breakfast at Changi V, simple breakfast... but now I'm too full to continue sleeping (damn, was thinking that I could catch a nap). Now he's unpacking his stuff, Huiling's helping him so I guess lets just leave him at that....

First Crash

Well, its gotta happen at some point in my life... only didn't expect it to happen so soon. I got into my first accident. Yup, but luckily it was only a minor one. That was 2 days ago, it happened at the Ikea carpark. I was there in the morning to meet Imran, he wanted to get some stuff for his room, so needed my help to drive the stuff back. So as Imran was waiting for me at the porch, I went over to the car to get ready, I did the usual of playing my Ipod first, then after everything was settled down I started the car and got ready to leave the lot. But there was this SUV that was parked beside me, and the best part was that the dumb driver had to park his huge-backside-SUV head in, so his big bottom was like blocking my view of whoever was coming. So I started inching my way out, trying my best to grab a view of my right side, to make sure that no one was coming over. And as I went out a little further, suddenly this dumb car appeared out of no where, he was going so fast he didn't see my car coming out, and by the time I was him our cars had already made contact. I stopped tmy car immediately but that stupid driver continued to move, scratching his own car and damaging my car plate at the same time.

So I got out of my car and of course the first thing I said was," uncle, why you dive so fast". From anyone's point of view and by theory of the book, I'm in the wrong, because I'm coming out of the lot, so I'm considered the small lane and he is the main lane. And also because it is my car that hit his car. So of course that uncle argued that it was all my fault and why I didn't check before leaving the lot. And the thing that pissed me off the most was that he tried to accuse me of using my phone. I was damn fucking pissed then, so I raised my voiced a bit and made it clear to him that I wasn't using my phone. Think he might have got the idea and stopped his wild imagination.

So after that we both took photos of each other's cars and got each other's contacts. So after discussing with my dad about it we came to 2 solutions, one is to pay his a some of $$ or to ask him to send his car to our mechanic and we pay for the service. So when I told the dumb driver that, he say he don't want to send to my mechanic, and insist on using his mechanic, which is of course I don't agree. He told me that he already got a quotation from his mechanic and it is like $700. That figure is like ridiculous, for $700 you can paint the whole car, does he really think that I'm born last week. So I asked him to send his quotation to me and we try to work something out. But a little later, he called me up and told me," Hi Tay, I discussed with my wife and she advised me to do my claim. After thinking about it, I think this is also logical since I have been paying for the premium insurance and all that, might as well I do my claim." I don't know whether he was trying to get me to up my offer or was he trying to get me to show some form of worry or was he just purely dumb to listen to his wife (well after the whole episode I think its the latter). Well, not only did I not up my offer, all I said was," ok, I'll send in my documents tomorrow". For something as small as this that dumb driver actually wanted to listen to his even dumber wife to do a claim. He must have thought that he had a sure win case on hand, but after thinking through all that happened, really I'm not trying to defend myself or something, but the fault of the whole episode is not entirely mine. This case is in fact a 50-50 one. No.1: He was definately driving too fast, in an enclosed carpark the speed limit should have been at 15-20 km/h, he was going at around 40-50 km/h. No 2: There was a huge SUV blocking my view, and the SUV even had tinted glass. So from my angle I could not have seen anything at all. Already I was inching my way out and if he had complied to the speed limit, at 20 km/h, he would definately have seen my car. Of course back to theory, I would have been wrong. But logically thinking about it, there was no way I could have avoided colliding with him, but on the other hand he had the ability to prevent this collision. Damn that fucker. So my agent told me that if he wanted to do a claim, then I also go do a claim against him, then we let the jury decide who is correct.

So the next day I went to look for Ah Chuan, a mechanic that my agent recommended who is experienced in dealing with these claims and all. After I met him, I told him my story and he told me that it won't work. If I go by my story, I will definately lose, so he told me to twist my story a little so that it works to my advantage. After finalising the story, we went over to idac to do a report and to give my statement. And just as I was about to submit the report, that bastard called me to say he doesn't want to claim anymore. And that he would bring his car to my mechanic to access and I pay him the amount that my mechanic advise, and he will take his car to his own mechanic to fix. I quickly went over to discuss with Ah Chuan, and he helped me tell the guys to hold onto the report and not submit. The funny part was he told them," the other party has just called to say that they are willing to pay us, so don't submit first."

So I arranged to meet that bastard at Ah Chuan's workshop. And that bastard made me wait for so long before he arrived. When he came, Ah Chuan looked at the scratch and told him $250. And he was so lo so... for a guy he was damn naggy, think he's at the market bargining for food. Took out all his quotations for us to see. His $700 quote and another from Borneo Motor $1660. He was so kind to tell me that even he thought that $700 is too high, so he called the workshop to tell them and they gave him a 20% discount, wah so kind of him. So I was there with him and Ah Chuan for an hour, can you imagine I had to endure an hour of his nag. He keep saying this part not align, that part gap too big, and that he is doing QA so he knows this more that others, and like showed us how much he knows his car by showing us every one of his scratch on his car. After looking at the workshop, he decided to do his car at our workshop, because its a registered company and looks safe. What a bastard right. Anyway I can't be bothered with him, just want to settle this quick. And I want to stress something, Although I agree to pay him, that does not mean that I'm saying I'm wrong and its all my fault. Its just that I'm willing to pay some $$ to settle an issue (of course if the amount is not too great), and that IN THEORY I was wrong.

Haiz, hopefully the year of the rat will be better for me, the pig year really hasn't been the best year for me. So many things happened, and it seems that there are more bad stuff than good stuff. Well good luck to me for the coming year, will really need it.

Free, free, free....

This semester is too relaxed. So much so that everyday I wake up having to decide if I want to go school. I do not have the urge to be in school to listen to the lectures and go for lessons. Well mainly because I'm only taking 3 modules this semester, so my timetable is like literally a 1 day week (I only have 1 lecture a day on wed, thur and fri, tues is officially off)... So you see I only have monday to be in school. I can't help but feel that I'm damn slack. Haven't been doing a lot of FYP lately either, did type a few pages the other day, but its not enough, my pace is getting a little too slow. Gotta buck up SL.

Well CNY is coming, my bro is coming back next week... so many things are gonna happen in the next 2 weeks. Dennis is getting married soon. Will be attending his ROM next month, here's wishing them a blessed marriage.

Also a bit sadz, my Wii cannot modify. It seems that my model is too new, so there are still some problem with the current chips, that make modification a little unstable. I went to Sim Lim the other day, and of course, the vendors there just anyhow quote prices (thinking that I'm a new born). The highest quote I got for modification that day was a whopping $290 for modification. The other more managable one is $160 (which I still think is quite a lot). But really if the 160 offer can settle the modification, I might just pay for it. Anyway an original game cost about $80, so its only the price of 2 games, and after that I can buy a lot of other games to play. So in the long run, I still more or less 'wins'. But of course that price is still out of my budget lah, I was thinking of under $100. Haiz, hope to settle this soon.

Back with a New Post for the New Year

Hey hey, I'm back in Singapore now. After missing in action for a while (because we didn't have any connection in Boston), I'm now back to my home country.

Yup, it has been a tiring but exciting 2 weeks. And yes, I finally went skiing in the States, it was awesome. The speed and trill is indescribable, love it. Bought a lot of stuff back, was just sorting out the stuff to give to friends and of course the stuff that I get to keep.

Well, just earlier, we were sort of stuck in Shanghai for a while. The fog there was pretty bad, and alot of flights were canceled and delayed. And yes, our flight wasn't spared either. It was delayed. So we had to spend an extra hour in the airport before our flight could take off. The whole scene there was super haphazard, people were scolding and raising their voices everywhere because of the delays. For us, we just kept our cool. The flight back was pretty cosy though, the plane was the smallest I've ever taken (even smaller than the chun qiu planes I took in China). But the seats were bigger and a little more comfy. And how can I not mention the flight from New York to Shanghai. There was this German couple who requested for an extra seat so that their son could sleep through the flight and not cry (reasonable enough if there are enough seats), and so the mum ended up seating in a seat that belongs to this chinese gal (she seems to have been staying in US for a while already). So this gal made a big who ha about her not seating in her right place, about touching her bag without her consent and what not. Well of course all this has got nothing to do with me, until she had to continue her argument for another 30 mins to an hour. I could not take it, it was like killing me. To think that it was just the beginning of our 15 hr flight, and she is definitely not going to spoil my whole (already very uncomfortable) journey. And of course my mum typically ask me to mind my own business, but I just couldn't. Already the German had given in to her by giving up the extra seat, the hostress even offered to change a seat for her, but nothing seems to satisfy her. As she was rattling on and on and on and on (with her super broken english, which she seems very proud of) I just turn back and said (in chinese), "Have you had enough of your nonsense, I need some rest". Finally everything stopped, peace at last. Well, I've already been pretty kind to her, wanted to say more nasty stuff to her, but I guess the angelic side of me got the best of me, haha.

Also brought back my Wii. But the most irritating thing happened. When I plugged the adaptor into the socket, the adaptor fused. Fuck man, now that I have everything, I still can't play. Have a lot to do tomorrow (of course school is not included, although has started), so time to get pass the jet lag and get some sleep. Got a lot more to blog, but I'll save for next time!