Happy Ang Pow Season!

Happy New Year everyone! It’s the ang pow season again.. heh, it’s really one of the only things that keep me going around during this red season.. well, then I realized that perhaps I should spend more time with granny.. she’s 77 this year.. that’s REALLY old.. Alright, that’s another story for another time..

So this year we had reunion at home too.. on Saturday.. had this steamboat thing and there were these really huge prawns.. it looks almost scary.. and I think, if we ever do that again, we should peel the prawns first.. otherwise the soup’s just gonna get all toxic. With the orange foam forming at the top of the soup and the prawny taste getting more and more overwhelming.. hah.


LEFT: That's how the soup looks like BEFORE the prawns.. haha.. toxic i tell you..
RIGHT: Yappys Unite!

Didn’t really go to many many places this year.. we went to mummy’s side first.. for lunch, then to daddy’s side. And we basically missed everyone cos we got there too late.. hah.. oh wells.. I think overall I went to 6 places.. both grandmas.. one aunty, uhh.. uncle Richard and aunty Veron’s place.. (yes, family of ThumperTan and BambiTan), a distant cousin’s place and to Junwei’s place too.. by far, Junwei’s place was prob the most slack one.. just went there with the whole lot and played some cards and nua..

TOP: I got me new socks! haha.. so cool right! Superman fan.. can't help it. *hums superman theme song*
BOTTOM: Beeps wanted a similar picture with this, so i decided to have an all-over-the-room one.

'C' is for Cookies and Concert

‘A’ is for ‘A Cookie’..
‘B’ is for ‘Big Cookie’..
‘C’ is for ‘COOKIE!!!’
*munch munch munch* -Cookie Monster

yesyes, I’m back with another update after quite a while.. ok so anyway..

I baked me cookies again on Saturday. Tried to get all the same ingredients and stuff but somehow the NTUC at Serangoon doesn’t have a lot of stuff. For crying out loud, they don’t even sell any kind of hot-chocolate mix.. and they didn’t have any chocolate chips either.. something tells me that if I want to bake and/or barbecue, I should NOT go to NTUC to get stuff.. Cold Storage is a better choice, then again, the NTUC at Bishan seems to be doing very well, so far, it hasn’t disappointed.. we shall see.. so I ended up getting some Nestle brand white chocolate chip thingy.. thankfully they turned out well..

That’s how the batter looks like after mixing the white and dark chocolate chips.. it tastes quite good actually.. and looks interesting too..

Alright, for the full recipe and a step by step walk-through of the whole baking process and what-nots, refer to my Famous Alvin Cookies entry.. the only difference this time, I guess, is that I used the white chocolate chip thing.. I had some left over Hersheys Semi-Sweet choc chip, abt ¾ cup, so I used a mixture of both. And instead of using 2 portions of milo mix, I had err.. hmm.. I think it’s 12 teaspoons of milo powder.. alright, so much for the mix. I managed to squeeze 16 cookies onto 1 cookie sheet.. that’s a record so far, I haven’t dared to try 25.. they might just spread and stick to each other and I’ll get ONE BIG COOKIE.. that isn’t so bad after all but well.. nevermind. So that means I get 32 cookies per batch since I use 2 cookie sheets.. good. VERY GOOD. =)

TOP: The first batch that I tried with 16 cookies on 1 sheet.
Bottom: The 16 after 35 mins.. looks good, they don’t touch each other, so this saves me so much time..

At the end of the day.. I had me approx 300 cookies.. total amount spent: approx $20. Having 300 cookies all to urself and the satisfaction of baking them: PRICELESS!

That’s the day’s yield. More than 300 cookies.. Beeps said it almost looks overwhelming peering into a tub so full of cookies.. haha, how often is that.

This week was also the week for the Jazz and Blues concert. Lunchtime concert rather.. seems like for this whole semester, there’s only gonna be one event. So for the whole academic year, seems like this is the only major thing that the committee has planned. Well, I mean hey, no one’s complaining *grin*.. =) (boss, if you’re reading this, just ignore the above sentence). So thankfully it turned out pretty well I’d say. Abit of scares here and there, musicians late, the van we rented is just one step away from blowing up and etc.. but on the whole, everything worked out. Thank God. We started just slightly pass noon and ended close to one-thirty. There was a HUGE crowd, even though there was this other event happening upstairs.. but thanks to the foresight of the planners, we got us a strategic place just outside the canteen. Haha, you’re in Singapore, anywhere with food, there’s gonna be people. =) oh and the really cool part about the Club.. All the drummers are ladies.. all 4 bands! How cool is that la? Haha.. the world’s changing my friend.


LEFT: The bands practicing on Monday night.. all the way past 11 in the night.
RIGHT: Samuel and Lina doing a final run through before the event.


We set up a booth to allow people to write their dedications.. quite cool.. as I was taking the pictures, it almost felt like a wedding reception where people will write their best wishes to the newly wed couple. Haha.. too bad I didn’t get to sell my cookies. *sigh*


Meet 2 of the 4 ladies who drum for the Club.


That’s Keshav on the keyboard. He apparently started a Jazz Club while studying in the previous school. He defines talent. And that’s Derek on the bass, he was the pioneer batch who started/formed the Jazz and Blues Club in NTU while he was here. He’s now doing his PostGraduate studies in NIE and decided to return to the Club.


LEFT: That’s Vinn the emcee for the event. Really interesting name, when I first contacted the emcee club and they told me that the person who will be assisting us was ‘Vinn’, I thot they were joking with me.. like making fun of my name or something..
RIGHT: That’s what happens after moving all that nonsense and equipment to and from the concert venue, sweating away in a cranky van with spoiled windows and hot aircon and no food since morning..

Next week’s gonna be the Lunar/Chinese New Year.. you know, I never fancied this time of the year, I always like the Christmas mood with the soothing carols in the background, the nice winds blowing, the pretty lights as you stroll down and soak in the pretty Christmas atmosphere.. it sort of has this calming effect.. nice and serene. That is such a contrast compared to the BRIGHT RED EVERYTHING that is all around and the noise that they make and the OH MY GOODNESS TURN THAT DOWN kinda music that sticks in ur head.. Haha.. I think the only reason that I’d like CNY is the yummy treats and not forgetting the red packets. Heh.. if you’d take those 2 away, I think I’d dig a hole and hide in it. Shoo..

My New Bottle

Materials Needed:

- 1 bottle
- Black spray paint
- Newspaper
- A template of a shape to use
- Masking tape
- Knife

Ok, so I got me 2 nice yellow bottles (read Typical Singaporean on how I got them). I just don’t like the words and design on it. I mean, how nice is BRITISH AMERICAN TOBACCO, when it’s right smack in the middle of the bottle. And on the reverse, WE CHALLENGE YOU TO SHAPE OUR WORLD. Baah..

So I decided to personalize it a little. =)

Ok, firstly you’d need to get a bottle. Some bottle that either 1) you don’t like how it looks, 2) are gonna throw it away or 3) have too much money so you bought a bottle (but that would defeat the purpose of personalizing one urself, since you’d be better off just paying someone to do it). Right, so anyway, you need to decide which parts of the bottle you want to cover up. In my case, it’s 2 areas; the ugly British American Tobacco logo on one side and their slogan/catch-phrase on the other.

I’ve decided to cover the logo area with a star-shaped patch and the slogan area with a nice big rectangle. Nice and plain rectangle so that maybe if I find me a nice Ferrari sticker or something like that (donate anyone?), I could paste it over. So the next step is to find a template that you want. In my case, I’ve got it in a shape of a star. Took it from a picture, edited it to size on Photoshop and printed out. Or you could simply draw by hand if you’re that good, unlike me. Then hollow out the shape and you’ve got urself a template.

That's my template. I got it from a picture that i took of a glow-in-the-dark star on my wall. Had to resize it in Photoshop to get it big enough to cover the whole logo.

That was the easy part. The next part requires you to trace out the shape on masking tape. You might wanna take ur time cos this will really decide how good the shape turns out. Tape the shaped pieces of masking tape over where you want it on the bottle and cover the remaining areas with newspaper and/or masking tape. Be sure that no holes peek out or the paint might get to the bottle.

That's the bottle being all wrapped up and ready to be sprayed. Took quite a while to cut the masking tape into the star shape. Heh, precision engineering..

Ok, now’s the fun part, lay the ground with newspaper and spray away on your bottle. It’s a good idea to make several thin coatings abt 10 sec apart, rather than one elephant skin-thick coating. You get a smoother and more even finish and lower ur chances of getting bubbles on the paint. Leave it to dry for a couple of hours.


The bottles getting a new coat. Woohoo!

Test on a little obscure corner to see if the paint’s dry. Once it is, use a knife and gently run along the edges of your masking tape. This can get taxing esp if your shape is some weird jagged shape but it’ll help to ensure that your new coat of paint don’t get peeled off with the tape. Then, slowly remove the masking tape and walaa! It’s done.. Your own personalized bottle. =)

TADAA!! My bottle with a nice star and a rectangle. Still trying to find a nice sticker to paste over the black patch, but at least the star turned out nice. =) SWEET!

I got bored and after looking at the nice round base, i got this idea. Heh, so imagine you take ur innocent bottle out in the train, then you start drinking from it and as you tilt it, everyone sitting opp you sees the base. haha..

Typical Singaporean

.. and I’m proud to be one! Haha.. so this week was some career fare thing that they had at the auditorium area.. and with that comes none other than FREEBIES! Every singaporean’s fav past-time.. collecting freebies! So I helped myself to some of the stuff.. there was too many booths and too little time.. so Kenny and I zipped around and tried to get as much as we could. Especially the goodie bag from some British American Tobacco company. Why? Cos it comes in this nice Big bag and more importantly, it has a nice water bottle in it. One of those metal ones.. how nice..


LEFT: Some of the freebies that i got. 2 notepads, a post-it pad, and 3 pens. The pens are quite nice and one of them even has those post-it stuff in it.. nice.
RIGHT: The nice metal bottle that everyone was grabbing. Thanks to kenny, i intend to decorate and design it, maybe cover over the logo or something. hah. Oh, and the best part, i tried to be thick-skinned and succeeded; I got me 2 bottles. =P

We concluded that they were so successful cos of a few reasons. Firstly, there was the nice water bottle.. that one cannot be helped. Typical Singaporeans (this one included) will naturally want the nice gifts. Secondly, they gave a nice big bag. Even though there was nothing much inside, it made you put all other tiny little bags (that the other companies and organizations gave) into this big one. So when you look around the canteens and bus-stops and lecture halls, everyone seems to be holding this bag. Naturally you’d be curious and want it too.. brilliant idea.

It's February! Quote of the month.. Utter despair. heh..

My New Hairstyle

I got me a new haircut this past weekend. New hairstyle rather.. so exciting. Something new. It’s been years since I had a change of hairstyle, not counting the free one in the army la. The big floppy hair thing has been pretty overdue.. and so now maybe a change is good. Rather refreshing I’d say. =) got it on Saturday from SuperCuts, while waiting to watch a movie.. the cool part was that this lady who attended to me (I think her name was Jess or Jenn or something like that), she was pregnant. And I mean PREGNANT.. think basketball-under-the-clothes sized pregnant. Her tummy was HUGE! And that stylo-milo belt that they wear to keep the scissors and clips was just hanging off the tummy.. so amazing. Too bad I didn’t get a shot of her.. maybe if dar goes back next week then I might get a picture. Haha.. HUGE tummy.. *faints* right, back to my hair.. it’ll take some getting used to.. nice? =)

Anyway, so last week happened to be the Nanyang Business School week. So they had the stage and booths and events and wat-nots. The best part.. Free Ramly burgers. Haha.. free food is always a welcome. *hint* well, there was actually some buffet thing too and more giveaways, but I think those were entitled to students from the business school, so I ain’t got my share.. oh and there was this magic show thing too.. quite silly.. it’s a rip off I think. Seriously.


That's the magician on the left. Kenny caught him slipping a piece of a rope (which he magically cut and re-combined) into his pocket. I caught him reaching into his pocket and pulling out a card under his palm. boo.. haha *so evil*

My tummy’s still a little rumbly from yesterday’s thai food.. the Basil Chicken has got to be my favourite dish from thai-express.. I’d highly recommend it to anyone who is as crazy over minced meat and rice as me.. nice and spicy and very very tasty. So my tummy was complaining the whole of today, but hey.. I’m not. Hah. Great World City is a nice place to be on a Sunday. There’s no one there (since it's so out of the way) and you pretty much get to roam around freely and you can definitely find a place to sit in coffee bean. Something you’d never ever dream of when you’re down in orchard on a Sunday evening. Hah. Speaking of which, I’m tempted. I think the next time I bake me some cookies, I’ll use the chocolate powder from coffee bean, instead of milo. I seriously think it’ll kick up the taste a notch. It’s expensive though, one tub costs more than 15 bucks. Urgh. Sigh, the price of good cookies.. uh wells..


Double Happiness. heh..


TOP: Melvin and Kenny feeling the force..
BOTTOM: One of kenny's many Hard Rock Cafe pin collection that i like..

Finding Beepo

-RESTRICTED-

Department of Justice
KVKL Marshals Service

MOST WANTED

Name: Yvonne YAP
Known alias: BEEPO.


Description:

Sex: FEMALE
Race: CHINESE
Date of Birth: -withheld for publisher’s own security reasons-
Place of Birth: SINGAPORE
Height: -withheld for publisher’s own security reasons-
Weight: -withheld for publisher’s own security reasons-
Eyes: HAZEL
Hair: BROWN
Scars/tattoos: NONE KNOWN


Wanted For: ILLEGAL HARVESTING OF COOKIES – FIRST DEGREE THEFT OF COOKIE.


Warrant Issued: EASTERN DISTRICT OF KVKL
Date of Warrant: DECEMBER 8, 2006
Warrant Number: W547146357

===ARMED AND DANGEROUS===

BEEPO is wanted by the KVKL Marshals for Illegal Harvesting of natural resources required to manufacture cookies. BEEPO jumped bond after her arrest by the KVKL state county police for 3 counts of cookie consumption in the First Degree. BEEPO is also wanted by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the illegal production and distribution of cookies.

BEEPO is a former undercover CIA agent sent to retrieve vital cookie information. She is well-versed in firearms, explosives and tactical training. She is a bodybuilder whose weight and muscularity varies. The KVKL-MS is offering a reward of up to 250,000 tonnes of cookies for information directly leading to her arrest.

NOTICE: Before arrest, verify warrant through the KVKL Crime Information Center (KCIC). If arrested or whereabouts known, contact the nearest KVKL Marshals Service office or the KVKL Marshals Service Headquarters at 1800-266-5437 (1800-COOKIES)

-RESTRICTED-

3rd week

Snails.. I hate snails. If there’s something I hate more than a snail, it’s gotta be 2 snails. Hah. Don’t ask me why, I’m not sure. Maybe when I was smaller I got traumatized by some snail that crawled over me, or maybe I shouldn’t have watched SLUGS last time. Wateva the case, I’m not liking them and I don’t intend to do so anytime soon. Snails are good away from me. The further the better.. *wimp* =P

So, it’s already the 3rd week of school and I’m starting to feel lethargic. Looking forward to weekends more often now just like in the army. And just like in the army, I dread every Sunday night.. Last week was some EEE-week thing on campus, with the Nanyang Arts Festival happening at the same time too.. quite cool. Some of the performances quite solid.. Too bad my rechargeable battery died and I couldn’t get any pictures during the performances.. (read A Final Farewell for more details on the death). So anyway, I resorted to alkaline and got nice and trigger happy and took some shots around school. School’s actually a great place to shoot, with many nice scenes, if only I’d know how to compose it properly.. quite a pity.. and photography lessons don’t come cheap.. sponsor anyone?


NAF: Nanyang Arts Festival

The weekend’s quite cool. A rather eventful one too actually, cos had quite abit of things to do and ended up waking real early on Sunday morning.. (early morning = more daylight hours = do more things = longer day.. in my world. Yes.. hi. Welcome to my world) I got to eat at Holland. It’s gotta be like a looong time since I ate there. Ok, so not that long actually, went there with beeps and ben after aaron’s wedding.. more like it’s been a long time since I went to NYDC. Ya, that sounds more like it.. NYDC. They serve great pasta and I just realized that they actually don’t serve any steak or fishNchips kinda thing.. how interesting. Must be doing very well from all that cheese cake.. oh and I’m up for duty again next week. So fast. *shrug* oh oh and I’m beginning to like my contacts so much. It’s really comfortable actually. And it’s so convenient not having to wear specs.. these 2 weeks have got to be the longest period that I’ve worn them at a go. beautiful invention.


Great Place, Great Food, Great Company. =)

Oh, and Melvin was nice enough to source out and pass to me all 6 episodes of Star Wars! How cool is that, I finally get to watch Episode III and see how he becomes Darth Vader.. Haha.. you start speaking strangely and doing stupid stuff after watching them. Heh. “Cranky, you will be..”


Left: Feel The Force..
Right: Kenny up to his mischief. There was a barrier lying around and we wondered if anyone would climb all the way down, see the barrier and go back up. Hey, at least we didn't put it at the top of the stairs. =P