Pimping My Notebook

Was inspired to pimp a notebook. I had a daily planner in Form 5 in which I would doodle and sketch. However, as Form 6 life was hectic, I barely drew. This notebook was used for Physics. Since I switched studying strategies halfway for KC Leong's "everyday you write a chapter on an A4 paper" trick, there were many empty pages left. Grabbed a brown puke bag (note: a CLEAN one), some paints, and my craft tools. Since I intend to bring this notebook to Hong Kong, I thought I'd decorate it of some things that mean to me. Here goes!

1. I cut open the puke bag and bordered it with strips of an old newspaper article on American artist Mark Jenkins. Jenkins creates sculptures made from cellophane tape. I read about him in 2006, and his offbeat creativity is really fun =). Painted the strips to add more colour.

2. On the 4th side, I tore out a shred from a purple "fabric-ey" birthday card Rob and Vin Ne gave for my 18th birthday (hope they don't mind!). I included the star pin from the card too. I decided to include the ACS monitors' badge. Being the tiny monitor of 24 hulks and 10 lovely girls was incredibly trying but never boring. The experiences and everyday laughs we shared is definitely something I'll remember till my old age! Nastrovje 6AB 2008 =). Added in red wool from a knitting set I don't know how to use.

3. I cut out a Ferrari F355 from a Singaporean telephone card. Gosh, I think few people use telephone cards for public phones nowadays! I used to collect plastic cards as a kid; my Kau Fu would supply me with old club membership cards from his days in UK and I amassed some Dragon Ball sticker cards too. Sadly, I can't find them. Oh well. Besides, I love fast cars! - for their power and aesthetic values.

4. Next came the gold pipe cleaners for my name. I've fond memories working with pipe cleaners in Form 3. For the post-PMR "Talentime", Eve wrote this simple but hilarious story about Princess Pea... and I was the prince! Imagine. The best part: we won =d. I used the pipe cleaners to create the king, queen and princess' crowns.

5. Next came the stamps: (from top) a mosaic of Jesus, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Australia. It looked a bit empty, so I randomly got out my rubber stamp and stamped in the empty spots. Put sticker pics (I don't have any of F4 or the Three!). Topped it with an old haircomb I never used, and my GB badge for colour. Honestly I have few fond memories of GB, except doing the finances with Miss Chong. Now that was something: can you see where my career path is heading? =D

6. Last of all, I put reinforcement tape rings! It's my foolproof cover-up trick when my idea stream begins to trickle. Added in my pretty pink heart stickers.. and voila! Pimped one notebook.

So, that's it. I've been "commissioned" to do up my sister's file. Till then!

FML

I chanced upon this site which I bet many of you will know about, especially those with nothing to do like me. Meet FML: Your Everyday Life Stories! Well, as you can probably guess, FML stands for "f*** my life". The site is basically a collection of everyday occurrences sent by users. People unwind by sharing about their daily crap, which can happen to practically anyone.

Posts are usually short, almost Twitter-like, and start with 'Today' and end with 'FML'. Readers are allowed two basic comments choices, besides commenting on the FML post itself: "I agree, your life sucks" for those they feel had a bad time, and "you totally deserved it" for those they feel who got into FML situations of their own doing.

Enjoy! I'm currently on page 128!!! ...couldn't stop reading and laughing and feeling sorry for those who got into really lousy situations. Some examples:

Today, I couldn't sleep and in the process of tossing and turning I did something very painful to my back. I spent 4 years in the marine corps infantry, but laying in a bed kicks my ass. FML

Today, at about 1 a.m. I got a drunk text from my girlfriend thanking me for the amazing sex last night. I have been out of town for 3 days. FML

Today, I found out that the love of my life, who I've been going out with for two weeks only, asked me out because he lost a bet. Apparently I'm the punishment for not being able to eat 10 hot dogs. FML

Today, I found out that the girl I've been in love with for a long while got back together with her ex boyfriend because he had confessed his true feelings to her through a note in her locker. It was my note. FML

Today, I was bored and decided it would be fun to pretend to be an undercover cop and pull over other cars. The first car I pulled over was a real undercover cop. FML

As for me, my main FML issue would be I haven't gotten my Glitterati status back even after removing the YouthSays link. Hope I'm not banned. Sigh. Otherwise it's time to search for a new ad portal. Sheesh.

One Lone Wolf

"Do you know why the moon is so lonely?

Because she had a lover. His name was Kuekuatsheu and they lived in the spirit world together. Every night they would walk the sky together.

But one of the other spirits was jealous. Trickster wanted the moon to himself. So he told Kuekuatsheu that the moon had asked for flowers. He told him to come to our world and pick some wild roses.

Kuekuatsheu didn't know that once he left the spirit world, he can never go back.

And every night since then, when he looks at the sky and sees the moon, he howls her name. But he can never touch her again."

" 'Kuekuatsheu' means 'The Wolverine'."

-'X-Men Origins: Wolverine'-

Premonition, or at least, an acute sense of perception is a very unsettling thing to have. When watching this movie with my ex-boyfriend, I felt that this story would come back into our lives. It did.

Goodbye. I wish you well. We will always be close. Now as more days pass since our last meeting, I'm even more resolved that my decision to end our relationship has been right. We are both on the brink of starting our own individual lives. All along, we've been carving very separate paths but for that chance encounter. Like you said, we were both out of school when we got acquainted. You tagged along with your sister; I came to help a friend. For those brief months of intense happiness and sadness, our souls touched. But now, it's time for us to learn and develop who we are. Separation pains will always be there, but I choose to remember the happier times, and I hope you will too.

"The unknown distance to the great beyond
Stares back at my grieving frame
To cast my shadow by the holy sun
My spirit moans with a sacred pain
And it's quiet now
The universe is standing still.."
-'Goodnight, Travel Well', The Killers-

Goodnight, travel well.

=(

I'm sorry I didn't give you another chance. Now you've changed into someone I don't know. It's all my fault.

Tired, broken down, biting dust.


Augh. Pound sand.

The Dummy Cook Strikes!

I had my first taste of tomato soup at Citrus. Initially I was a bit wary, because liquid tomato tends to go sour. To my relief, the soup was pretty yummy (to the satisfaction of my dining partner, my tuition teacher Mr. Chin)! So, this dummy cook decided to try out the recipe. Should be quite simple for other dummy cooks like me.

(Ok, I was lazy to take a good shot... maybe during dinner!)

Simple Tomato Soup
Ingredients:
-2 tablespoons butter
-1 onion, chopped
-2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
-1 quart tomato juice (about 945 ml)
-salt to taste
-2 cups milk

Using medium heat, saute onion in butter till the onion bits go translucent. Remove from heat. Stir in flour so that no lumps remain, then slowly whisk in tomato juice. Return to heat and add salt to taste. Continue cooking but turn off the heat just before it boils. Let cool for 10 minutes then slowly stir in milk. This recipe serves 6.

Tomato juice can be substituted with equal parts of tomato sauce and water. According to the recipe, that would be 472ml of sauce and 472ml of water. I actually emptied a whole bottle of tomato sauce but it came up to 200++ ml only!!! Nevertheless, I put in an equal amount of water, stirred. It didn't seem to make much of a difference as the flavour was pretty much the same. I didn't have flour.. or I just couldn't locate it!! haha, but I substituted it with corn flour. Again, it didn't alter the taste. It was rather sour at first though, so I put in 3 cups of milk instead. Another way to lessen the sourness is to add sugar.

A simple garnish is basil. Personally, I dislike the toothpaste-y taste of basil. Another alternative for dummy cooks would be croutons. The lazy cook's recipe for making croutons:

Ingredients:
-bread
-butter
-salt and pepper

Slap butter on bread. Add salt and pepper, fry in non-stick pan.

Success! Success! Brother asked for second helping of the soup!

Funny Video of Bulgarian Idol 2008

This is a video of an audition at the 2008 Bulgarian Idol. The song is called 'Ken Lee'; it's actually a garbled version of Mariah Carey's 'Without You'. The video of the contestant, Valentina Hasan's singing was immensely popular in Youtube, so much that the producers of Bulgarian Idol invited her to sing the song live a few weeks later. Hasan subsequently explained to the local media that she didn't know English. Anyway, enjoy! Inuk and I laughed our heads off. The word that really gets me is "molinigh" =d.

Foodie Talk: License to Grill

My favourite food show is License to Grill, hosted by Canadian chef Robert Rainford. As the title denotes, License to Grill is a barbecuing show. Its format is basically Rob cooking up a storm for a dinner party he's hosting. Side characters include his local butcher, the fishmonger, and the green grocer who give extra advice to the ingredients that make a good barbecue.

Before you dismiss barbecuing as merely dipping chicken into sauces and burning 'em black over a BBQ grill, let's check the man and his foodies out. Rob Rainford is no crackpot chef. (It is easy to be blasé about cookshows nowadays, because they're popping up like bubbles in a bath.) Born in 1966, Rob's family migrated from Jamaic' to Canada. In 1994, he enrolled in culinary school at George Brown College. His career began at the Kensington Kitchen, then subsequently at Accolade. He moved on to Senses in 1999, working with chef Ned Bell, one of Canada's leading chefs. His coming into his role as "barbecue-ologist" (don't look at me, AFC used that word) happened as he was trying to be a good father, combining his skills as a culinary chef and the casualness of cooking in the home for his three children.

I like this show a lot for its casual settings. Cooking is done outside, with sun, breeze, and a pool to look at! Rob is superbly at ease as host. His slang is very easygoing and amusing, if slang could be described as such. Baggie, mush mush mush (he pronounced it as "moosh"), etc. Furthermore, he uses all kinds of base ingredients and marinades for barbecuing. Besides red meat, there're lobster, scallops, even figs, AND he includes side dishes which utilise the grill too. Enough said, let's take a look at some of his recipes. I reckon recipes which take a short grilling time would be successful with a non-stick pan, but I haven't tried it out yet =p. Click on the food names for the recipes!

Cedar-planked salmon


Cola ribs


Grilled onions with Spiced Summer Apricot Mustard Glaze. Apparently the onions used, that is, Vidalia onions, are sweet.


Grilled scallops with roasted red pepper sauce


Roasted tomato soup

Currently, License to Grill shows at odd hours. However, starting July 13th, the show will air at 7:30pm on weekdays on the Asian Food Channel (Ch 703). Now I shall bum off for dinner because all that recipe-gazing has made me hungry =)!