小頌私防菜之。。。 sun-cooked olives..

i followed my parents to the local wet market to get some local olives because my parents were making a trip to see some relative and decided to get them some of this nice local delicacy.. since it was a sunny day i decided to get a half kilogram worth of it to make my sun-cooked olives..

you'll need the following ingredients:

1/2 kg of olives
sugar
soy sauce
that's all.. REMEMBER to do this on a hot sunny day..

first.. wash the olives.. then add sugar and soy sauce (depends on how sweet and how salty you want it)... mix them and then pour onto a flat dish..

leave it under the hot sun.. i left it for 3 - 4 hours to let it "cook".. after the hot sun cooked my olives, i just took them in..

look!!! it is cooked through.. i should have added more sugar but.. it still tasted good..

this way, the goodness of the fruit is not lost through boiling it and then cooking it.. by adding the sugar and soy sauce, the flavor goes directly into the fruit..

some have been shocked by how this could be done.. IT CAN.. and IT HAS..

yum yum...

ENJOY..

project E.L.M.O...

over the hari raya break, i took a little break of my own and found myself in KL.. i was supposed to go there to meet up with an university mate but i was AirBus380-ed..

but it was an enjoyable trip nontheless.. so i decided to call my trip PROJECT E.L.M.O in recognition of my friends' shitzu.. which is also named elmo.. E.L.M.O is my acronym for Enjoy Life, Mindful Oblivian.. i am taking cues from my friend's shitzu.. hehe..

i sort of observed that the doggie spends its days waiting for its daddy and mommy to come and spend time with it.. along the day, it has no real agenda but to run around the house and keep itself buy until family time..


elmo (the doggie) would often sit behind the gate to peer out into the open world.. i think most of us do that, looking at that greener grass.. sometimes mundane sets in and a sense of lost just washes over.. but most times, that greener grass is nothing in comparison with the comfort that is home..



i think sometimes we overthink our lives.. simplicity maybe the answer.. don't over analyse.. take a cue from elmo.. just be contented.. and all the good things will come to you..

Social Networking Wars.. how true..

i think the novice that is the online social networking craze has sort of platoued.. maintaining several social networks online is a hassle in some ways.. having to log into everyone of them to check what is posted, what is new, etc. is kind of time consuming..

some of them are aggressive, sending out emails to inform you of events and recent updates..

but sometimes, it is just plain annoying.. being poked and superpoked etc etc.. oh well.. maybe that was the design..

when we have an abundant of internet content we have to sieve through to get some good content, a poke is probably the one thing you would ignore..

or maybe it is just that no one really pokes at my profile.. ahhaa...

i'm lame..

a literary effort : the bankrupt prince and the m.i.a princess

i was watching a program which sort of wanted the participants to "compose" the whole story from a few given clues/sentences.. so i thought i would give that a try.. and test out how much of the english language has deserted me whilst i become less dependent on the language for everyday life..

THE PRINCE IS BANKRUPT. THE PRINCESS WENT MISSING. the ending... THE PRINCE AND THE PRINCESS LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER...

The Prince has been declared a bankrupt. The war on the neighbouring state has exhausted the Prince's credit and due to the Prince's default in a lot of payments and being arears in others, he has been subsequently declared bankrupted.

That rainy morning, the Prince left his castle as it was repossesed by the banks to be auctioned off. He was saddened that his efforts to keep the invading neighboring state did not result in victory and his heart pained to see his subjects suffering from the mistreatments from the invading army.

Time passed and his status as Prince was no longer. He became a common folk, a peasant and began to make those nice pan fried chinese dumplings he was so fond of when he was a child. His memory was filled with those days when his mother made them for him and his sister. But as soon as his thoughts of his sister surfaced, he became still. His sister, the Princess has gone missing since young and he has not seen her for more than a decade. He still believed that she was alive but could not bring himself to think that she was no longer of this earth.

As his dumplings became famous, more people came to his shop. He met a nice girl and got married.

One day, his wife shouted out in exhilaration as she saw her best friend. The wife's best friend has gone off to another land helping the underpriviledged and had done so for many years. She (the best friend) too exhaulted joy to see her friend. As they sat and talked and enjoyed the delicious dumplings made by the "Prince", the best friend's eyes suddenly teared up.

She uttered that the taste was familiar, that her mother used to make the dumpling for herself and her brother. Asked if she knew where her brother was, she said she did not know as she was taken away when she was young by her mother and left that big house to live in a faraway place.

On hearing that, the Prince began to suspect her identity. The Prince began to slowly see the reseamblance of his mother in her and when he saw the locket she was wearing, he immediately took out his. Both were identical. She was the Princess that went missing for all those years and he was the brother she had know to exist but had no contact with for so long.

As they cried and hugged each other, the wife prayed and thanked the Lord for the reunion of her husband and her sister, who was her best friend but became her sister-in-law.

Their mother has since passed but her memory lived on in the dumplings that they make. As their business grew bigger, the Prince no longer minded the fact he was no longer Prince. Gone were the responsibilities but instead, he became benevolant to his customers and began to help as many as he could.

Years passed but the good deed of the kind Prince and his benevolance reached far and wide. As the invading ruler died, the Prince was returned to the throne. In his rule, he made sure everyone was able to enjoy peace and maintained good diplomacy with neighbouring states.

The Princess met a Prince from one of the neighbouring state who too loved to help the less fortunate. Together, they began their quest to rid their kingdoms of hatred and war and suffering, giving out hope and love and generosity to all they met on their journey.

As the Prince and the Princess were kind to all, their's were a kingdom not touched by war, famine, or poverty but abundance and forever grateful. The Prince and Princess lived happily ever after, knowing that their good deeds were spreading to all corners of their kingdom.

just some carbohydrates fix..

i went to town to try to eat tien pien ngu.. but unfortunately the traffic was horrenderous.. including the weekend rush to get those lottery tickets.. or maybe because tomorrow is mid-autumn festival..

anyway.. i ended up at the dumpling tea house.. a little bit off foochow lane here..


on the day.. i ordered the zha jian mian 炸酱面 and the woh tieh 锅贴...

zha jian mian 炸酱面


this dish is not bad.. the sauce looks like what i see on tv.. but i hadn't really tried out the taiwanese or korean version.. maybe next time.. but this one's not bad.. but i like to add the chilli oil to this..

woh tieh 锅贴

actually this one is not bad.. for rm4.50 you get 10 pieces of this pork and chives pan fried dumpling.. nice.. you must eat with the ginger and dark vinegar..

not a bad outing..

the new iPod Touch version 090908

Apple just released its updated version of its cross-platform all-in-one console.. with wifi capabilities and gaming enable, the new iPod Touch with its new 2.1 firmware is designed to capture a lucrative handheld gaming sector..

eh.. why am i reviewing it?? i am not a reviewer.. i just thought it is a cool device.. now with inbuilt speakers.. someone suggested that soon, you can perform VOIP chats on it.. i.e. via skype or MSN or Yahoo Messenger or AIM.. well.. you get the drift..

now if only i have full wifi connection wherever i go...

how to untangle???

i was reading 熊寶的塗畫日誌 and felt that things have sort of become a bit stuck.. halted.. not moving.. you get the drift..

i think there is a time when everyone hits a plateau.. a time of just plain nothingness.. well, sort of nothingness.. i don't even know what the hell am i on about here.. maybe just a sense of urgency as time keep on passing by quickly..



















let's not dwell on that too much.. since today is the global launch day for iPhone 3G, i thought i'd post some photos gathered from the net... looks kind of cool.. a bit tad expensive on its own, but still..

070108 the halfway mark...

today is the 1st day of July in the year 2008.. the half way mark for this 2008th year in the AD..

a look in the calendar, it lists today as the the 183rd day of 2008 and there are 183 days left before we enter 2009..

so a half year has gone by.. review time i guess for many of us living in dire conditions brought about by changes in this half year.. were we prepared for it?? are we prepared for more of it?? is there more to expect?? more questions for the next 183 days before 2009..

so far this past half year, we had to adapt to new changes in many facets of our daily lives.. there was that 0308.. then there was the increasing global oil price (futures) that caused our local pump to increase in its retail price per liter (doh!!).. which gradually effected many things.. and shrinking our spending abilities.. if only i could strike the jackpot on sportstoto..

there were of course those tragedies that happened abroad.. it was disheartening to see people suffering from natural disaster and yet others trying to make money out of it.. or gain some celebrity out of it (attention ms. SS... please shut up!!)..

so far 2008 has been uneventful.. with one thing happening after another.. or perhaps we live in a world bombarded with too much information that our brains are conditioned to only take in the bad and forget that some good happened too..

well.. to the next half..


the 2008 summer olympics will be held in beijing on the 8th day of august, 2008.. which before was too politicized.. please, there should be a "segregation" of sports and politics.. this is the stage for the many people who have worked hard to hone their skills and perform at their best for their country and personal glory at a world stage.. do not use this as a means to promote personal agendas.. it is the wrong forum.. COMMON SENSE and BETTER JUDGEMENT and COURTESY..

of course, there are some more hollywood movies to grace our screens.. so watch out for those.. but since everything has gone up in price, i would probably just stay at home..


................................

being here today...

"Modern man drives a mortgaged car over a bond-financed highway on credit-card gas."- Earl Wilson 1907-, American newspaper columnist

您端午節了沒？

今天是端午節。。

從 wiki。。“端午節於每年農曆五月初五舉行，又稱端陽節、午日節、五月節、五日節、艾節、端五、重午、午日、夏節，本來是夏季的一個驅除瘟疫的節日，後來楚國詩人屈原於端午節投江自盡，就變成紀念屈原的節日，與春節、中秋同屬中國最重要的傳統節日。在2008年，端午節在6月8日。”

小頌覺得人生如粽子。。

即使外層是糯米，可是備案還有這麼多的選擇。。

有些裹頭包著貴的物品，如鮑魚，扇貝，蝦等， ..

也有些包著紅豆沙..

無論是什麼材料，如我們的人生..不知道什麼是備案，直到我們把它咬下.. （除非我們看到的作過程） ..

happy dumpling day 2008..

forrest gump said that "life is like a box of chocolate"...

i say that "life is like a dumpling".. you don't know what the filing is until you bite into it.. it could be sweet or it could be savoury.. whatever the taste, it is life.. full of surprises and mysteries.. and we only could only know the outcome when we tried it..

eat that dumpling.. taste life.. the sweet and the savoury..

(NOTE : if you have high blood pressure or diabetes or any other ills, please make note to take in moderation or find alternative types of dumplings.. )

美麗的夕陽 ^ ^

那天下班，在路上看到這美麗的天空景色。。就想快把它拍攝下來。。



這些照片，從我的角度來看，很漂亮喔。。。

那天有點亂和急，又怕畫面消失，小頌就用手機來拍這些照片，所以希望畫面質量是好的..

希望這張照片帶點平靜給您

ticked off.. DO NOT SMS/TEXT WHILE YOU DRIVE...

just now, i was ticked off by some drive who was sms-ing while driving.. my goodness, what is he thinking..

at first, i was wondering why the car in front of me was driving with a non-uniformed speed.. and he stopped like 3 cars away from the car in front of him.. i thought he was a overtly careful driver at first..

but, then i caught a glimpse of his side mirror.. to my horror... he was sms-ing.. probably searching for that cute icon of a smiley face or something..

the horror continued.. we stopped at a traffic light.. he was sms-ing.. then from the get go at the traffic light, he was still sms-ing.. i decided ENOUGH is ENOUGH.. so i cut pass him.. i saw him glimpsed over to me as i was tailing him before..

UNCLE.. if you want to stare at me, then please know that you are driving dangerously on the road.. SMS-ing..

DO NOT SMS/TEXT WHILE DRIVING..

成雙成對。。。

早餐時，看到這張照片在報紙上。。想跟大家分享。。都成雙了耶。。。



最近感覺有點down。。 或許是因為天氣的悶熱，它也。。。



其實，我也不知道怎麼說。。。

就覺的累。。。沒方向感。。。可能風沒在吹把。。。

好啦。。。不要在講這個了。。下面的照片是在莫本地政府部門怕的。。 有點不知道是否掛在正確的地方嗎？？

CHOYA umeshu チョヤ

one of the drinks i like from japan is this.. CHOYA umeshu.. a plum wine from japan..

according to their website .. "From olden times on to the present day, UME-fruit liqueur has been a familiar beverage in Japanese households well known and loved for its relaxing effect as well as its usefulness for keeping healthy. Because of the faint aroma, well-balanced acidity and sweetness of UME-fruit liqueur, it is said to be one of the most delicious liquors in the world.

The reasons why it is good for our health are, firstly, the main component of the organic acid incorporated in UME-fruit liqueur is citric acid. This substance relieves fatigue and helps the body recover its energy and vitality. This is what is known as UME-fruit liqueur's relaxing effect.

Second, drinking just a bit in times when the appetite is lost stimulates saliva and gastric secretions enhancing the appetite and bringing out the flavor of any meal. Third and last, UME-fruit liqueur possesses a sterilizing effect and an intestinal digestion process coordinating effect that purifies the body's internal organs and relieves diarrhea.
UME-fruit liqueur not only soothes the weary body and soul but is also a potent medicinal agent. Backed by well-substantiated scientific proof, UME-fruit liqueur is synonymous with good health."

anyway... i wanted to try this the very first time i went to japan... but i did not get a chance.. and on leaving japan (during that first trip), i bought a small bottle which i did not want to open..

on my second trip there, i sampled it and liked it a lot.. and it was winter, so basically the wine helps.. haha..

although i have a suspicion that this wine is specifically targeted for the female buying public.. but hey.. a good wine, everyone should enjoy.. for people who don't drink too much wine and want to taste this.. very recommended..