Text Tantrum

Now we're one who's not really rather disciplined when it comes to housekeeping on our mobile. Day in day out we'll be sending and receiving texts, and the next thing you know, there's now some 500+ texts in both our Inbox and Sent Messages folders - a total of 1000+ texts to clear.

This, normally, would be an easy task for some people where all they do is delete everything in one shot.

Not for us, however, as we sometimes have texts with information we need to keep aside for some time being, or sometimes interesting texts like 'Vin's 'Free stay at Bukit Aman' text (long deleted already tho'), or the food fights we had with Lemon, or texts with the Chief.

So now our L'Amour has started acting up - it tends to reset on its own regularly, and the same autotext from Maxis regarding our miss calls keep coming in, and earlier in the night we had a bunch of texts from since last night suddenly coming in.

'Course, this is the second time it's happening, and we're pretty sure it's because of the amount of texts because the last time this happened and we cleared up our texts, our L'Amour miraculously recovered.

Right, it's time that we clear up the memory in our poor L'Amour and relieve it of its text obesity. And stop finding excuses to get the iPhone.

Chief Comments Canton

Now we're no food blogger - we don't have the necessary sensitive tastebuds to isolate each and every herb and spices used in the dish, nor do we have the handy notepad to jot down the taste experience, but we do have the ever-handy camera to take shots.

Altho'...like the Chief even asks, why do we take photos of food in the first place? No idea. Just because.

So last week we finally got the bug for movies, especially since the summer movies are starting to trickle in.

Angels & Demons? Good but not great, our attention to the movie was more to noticing the differences (vast differences!) from the book. Still not too bad and pretty straightforward, but like Da Vinci Code, will never be as good as the book.

Night At The Museum 2? Lighthearted fun. Please leave common sense at the front door - not because of the fact that things come alive, we're okay with that, but because of the things they do. The singing cherubs had us in laughter with their songs, tho'!

Star Trek? Must say it's good. Even tho' we kept making fun of how, when people try to elicit a emotional response from Spock, we kept pointing a finger and making sawing noises a la Sylar. We do wonder why are their uniforms rather baggy, tho'.

Oh yes. Food. Just before Star Trek we'd to do dinner, and as dinner goes we both found ourselves at Canton-I MidValley. And like we said, we're no food blogger...so we asked the Chief to comment and we mulled over it.

The Chief finds this slightly lacking...oh dear, we can't remember what it actually is now. Char siew pau comes to mind, but that's not it. There just wasn't enough meaty filling and it crumbles to bits.

The fried rice with chicken slices and salted fish, now, would have most people reaching for their glass of water after one spoonful. Too salty for the Chief, but we liked the dish.

The char tau kuey on the other hand, was easily the best dish we had. As the Chief puts it, firm crispy skin but once you bite into it, melts in your mouth. We tried a piece, it did exactly that, but also proceeded to burn our tongue.

Of course, the rice and char tau kuey didn't seem enough to fill us up, so we decided to get a bowl of congee to top it up. Smooth. Good for dumping in all that salted fish, except we didn't.

Their flower teas are really just plain decorative, bitter teas. We'll stick to the choices from Winter Warmers next time.

And of course, dessert. Since both of us love mangoes...we could have done without all that flakes, tho'.

Getting Our Nail B(l)ack

Now quite some time back last year -checks photo dates- late September, we took a nap in our car. Interesting enough instead of napping in the driver's seat as we usually do, we somehow found ourself in the front passenger's seat with the seat all the way down and an iKea pillow propping our head.

After what may have been a quick half-hour's snooze, we groggily got the chair back in position, got out of the car, and with our right hand on the car to support us, proceeded to slam the door on our right index finger.

The wonderous thing about being drugged, or groggy, or intoxicated, or inebriated, is that for a fair number of things, they don't immediately register. Pain is one of them.

We could even look at our finger, with half the nail stuck behind the door, and think, "Damn, it's stuck," and proceed to tug at it in the hope that we didn't have to open the door to free it. That didn't work, so we opened the door and removed our digit where, now free from the compression, slowly began feeling warm.

By the time we got back to the office, pain has made its presence felt, and after some painful typing we knew we were reduced to typing with just our left hand. After an accidental bump and when the throbbing had stopped, we knew we needed padding.

And the bigger the buffer, all the better. After all, the gauze didn't cost a lot and wouldn't have mattered too much if it did at the time.

With that settled, we waited for the inevitable. Our sis not only voiced out what we already knew, which was that the nail will turn black and fall off, but she did add a distressing bit where the new-grown nail will not look smooth.

Wasn't long before the fingernail died, and we were slightly vexed that only half the nail turned black. Because we realized that this meant that the death and rebirth of our fingernail would not be akin to a phoenix being reborn from the ashes but rather as if someone came back to life only to find himself still trapped in the coffin and now needed to claw his way out.

Two months down the road and here you can see said methaphorical resurrected fellow getting the coffin lid loose, or where the dead half of our fingernail slowly detaching itself from the nail bed. The other half remained intact. At this point most everyone had already asked us why did we paint our nail black, and why only one?

Soon enough after that, as the nail was now free of the nailbed, the clotted blood was free to make known the smell to us, which prompted us to prepare a little bath of Dettol just for Mr Finger.

Much better once it was cleaned up.

Couple of weeks down the road, the loose jagged edge needed to be kept in check as it soon started snagging on things. Much neater, but now it had a more noticiable corner to snag things.

By the end of December, we'd cropped most of it off to make way for new growth. Here's where said metaphorical resurrected fellow has now managed to dig his way, and has a hand pushing through the surface.

By the second week of January, the old nail was almost clipped off leaving it clear for the new nail to grow.

And by February, said metaphorical resurrected person has now cleared through the ground, and has gone home to take a good long bath and is now all nice and clean. And the distressing bit about the nail not looking as pretty as it once was? Did not happen!

Triple Traditional Cheena Birthday!

Otousan already stated since our last birthday get-together in March that he wanted to have a Chinese dinner celebration for his birthday - the last time we had a round dinner table gathering was during lad's birthday in...2006? 2005? Oh goodness when was that dinner followed by Bangkok Jazz?!

Anyways, our birthday celebrations have been long dinner tables for a while now, and otousan's points out that we all don't get to really talk with everybody else, thus the round table style where everyone can listen in to everyone else's conversation.

So the mantle of OC was taken up by esteban, and did a great job of finding a halal Chinese restaurant and getting us all a room, and suggesting a theme that wasn't too far-fetched that would make everyone quail and not play along (no, we don't think everyone will dress up for a Goth theme). And everyone did dress up in traditional cheena garb!

As this party clashed with another birthday party on the same day, the Chief and us did the (as we think of it) 'married couple going for clashing weddings thing' - Chief went to represent us both on that side while we represented on this side.

The halal Chinese restaurant turned out to be Bangsar Seafood. The table was big enough to fit the 14 of us...

...with a lazy Susan on it, and a decorative piece that was placed slightly off-center that caused 'Vin to get so worked up over it because it was not properly centered, but because 'Vin just had his op he couldn't very well reached over to fix the centerpiece (and no one bothered about fixing it either haha).

Appetizers of kacang and lotus slices to whet our appetite.

We'd all chose the 'Great Value Promotion Package B'...

...which starts off with the [Chef Amuse Bouche]. Of course, being rather the meat eater we would have rather the cucumber be swapped for more dim sum but it did help build the appetite slowly.

After that, the [Shark's Fin Soup With Crab Meat]. As these things goes, we didn't taste shark's fin (or not in sufficiently large amounts) nor did we taste crab meat.

While we were all helping ourselves to second helpings (or more) of the shark's fin and crab meat soup, we saw two gigantic paus being brought in. Turns out to be the [Wok Fried Chicken On Homemade Bread]. Think large siew pau.

The [Steamed Sea Garoupa Fish 'Singapore' Style] was good. It's rather an odd thing how when we were young we hated fish and veg.

And the [Wok Fried Prawns With Dried Chilli] could have been better. The sauce was good, the prawn meat, meh.

Clean plates were given for the [Deep Fried Beancurd With Homemade Paste]...

...and clean bowls for the [Stir Fried Egg Noodles With Snow Vegetables And Shredded Chicken]. Two helpings. We think it was because it was salty enough to keep us going for more.

Desserts took hold as it was time for cake!

Followed by the essential group photo.

Then it was back to the desserts that we saw.

For the [Chinese Pastry Combination], the green pastry was, of course, yummy while we cannot remember much about the other one. Lotus paste, was it? Something sweet, of course.

And to finish off, the [Boiled Water Chestnut With Egg]. And most of us thought that the egg was actually crushed ice. Luckily it was only lukewarm.

There was a blackout somewhere early during the dinner that had some of us thinking that they'd turn off the lights and was bringing in the cake, and a rousing verse or two of Happy Birthday actually started before it died off. While the power came back on soon enough there was a problem getting the air-conditioning to start again! We would rather the lights were out but the a/c running. Thankfully things were soon rectified, and dinner was merry until the waitress interrupted our birthday-present giving ceremony to hand us the bill and inform us that they were closing soon.

More May babies to come!

Sis' Birthday Project 2009

May is one heavy month for presents, whatwith lotsa May babies and Mother's Day, and it's never an easy task coming up with present ideas. Thankfully sis thought of something for Mother's Day this year, so all we had to do was think of what to get for dear sis before she came back for her birthday dinner.

Then so happens we remembered seeing recipe cards in a craft shop in Bangsar Shopping Centre before. So when we were out with the Chief for dinner, we dropped by BSC to have a look again at the recipe cards and get a second opinion as to present suitability.

The Chief thought that it wasn't such a great present, as the cards were pretty small (about flash card size) and even if we got a basket to place the cards in it still wouldn't do. A round about the shop didn't present any other suitable presents, when the Chief suggested that we get a folder and decorate it nicely as a cookbook.

And seeing how it was already Thursday night, and sis was due back on Saturday, and this kinda craftwork takes a bit of time to do, we certainly had to rush now.

So we headed into Times BSC to get a nice 4-ring folder. And then on Friday we happily shopped at Popular and Papier for materials. Cardstock, embossed plastic inserts, ribbons, papers, whatever that happens to be cheap in Papier...Tell the truth, though, we had absolutely no idea just how we would decorate the folder, so we had to wander around the stores looking and this and that, wondering about the suitability. Ended up we had to get a few things to try later.

So Friday night we're based in front of the telly with our stuff set up and Battlestar Galactica running. Start off with the easy bit of cutting the cardstock to size to fit the folder. Even cardstock design took us ages wondering in Papier, looking for something appropriate for a cookbook.

Then we'd thought to try the corrugated cardboard as we wanted to cover the fact that it's a ring binder we were giving to her.

It's a bit tough trying to cut the corrugated cardboard to size, as it kept rolling up. But we'd manage to cut it to size.

We'd bought a metre of ribbon and a mini clip to add to the folder too. Initially instead of a clip we wanted to put a pen, but we forgot to get one. Once we'd the corrugated cardboard pasted on, we could finally put in the plastic inserts, and cards to use as dividers.

Decided to keep the front cover simple, so we just pasted the printout and stuck on photo corners for sis to put in any photo she fancied (we wanted to put in a photo of her cupcakes she made some time back, unfortunately the photo was on her camera and we didn't have a copy in our pc).

We found cheap overlays selling at Papier, about RM4 per piece instead of the normal RM10 price tag that we normally find. Rather nice design too, so we just had to add it on regardless if it meant that the coverpiece wasn't so clear.

And while initially the folder could have been used for anything other than just a folder to hold recipes, pasting thickers in addition to that 'Cookbook' cover bit ought to do the job...

And the finished piece. Then we realized that sis was gonna have a heck of a job lugging this back to Sporeland...

Holiday A-Dreamin'

Just so happens that today whilst at work we sorta hit a mental brick wall, and everything comes to a complete halt and all we can do is think about taking a weeklong holiday to Sporeland.

We think it's probably either due to us recently reading Agatha Christie's Miss Marple series and the idyllic settings of an English village, or it could be our morning coffee (which, sometimes, has us feeling lightheaded after our first cuppa, but we soon recover on our second cuppa).

While a weeklong holiday to Sporeland something that we could do, we're not looking to burning our leave days like that so soon. There's the YKLS production in November, meaning we've to block of leaves for that, and if we were to take a nice long vacation, we should plan to go with the Chief.

Mind you, we're really thinking/dreaming along the lines of long, do-nothing kinda vacation where the key word would be: idleness.

Where, if we did go Sporeland, all that we would be doing would be to wake up late, go for a leisurely dip in the pool (assuming we stay with sis, of course), lounge at a Starbucks along Orchard Road, and shop. Everything indoors and air-conditioned, although it's rather unfortunate that Sporeland suffers the same hot and humid weather we're going through now and that every time we step out into the Sporeland streets we immediately break out in sweat, whether it be to walk from one mall to another or to head to the MRT stations.

Why Sporeland?

Why not Bangkok?

Also, what do we call all our past highland getaways or weekend Sporeland trips or the recent Hat Yai hopalong then?

Well, we're more familiar with Sporeland. It also helps that sis is around should we need accomodation. And since we're just dreaming of an idle vacation there's not gonna be any intensive travel itinerary save Orchard Road Shopping. Oh and maybe the few food places the Chief can introduce us too (like them yummy porridge with raw fish!).

Bangkok, while full of shopping possibilities, put us in mind of hot weather more than air-conditioned lounging. It just does. Must be because we're thinking of Chatuchak and the nighttime street markets than we do of Paragon and MBK.

And we call those our previous trips 'quick getaways', not leisurely vacations. Even the Hat Yai trip, while over a long weekend, was slightly stressful as it the trip involved almost all of Clan Chief and heavy shopping (although we ended up buying close to nothing).

Last time we did a leisurely Sporeland trip? Two years back.

Good grief productivity has definitely slowed down today.

And maybe we should be dreaming about a leisurely weeklong break in Glasgow or London instead, where the weathers much more to our liking all year around. Walk about Oxford Street or Sauchiehall Street or Argyle Street. Visit HMV, Virgin Megastores, lounge at Starbucks with a Strawberries and Cream frappe costing 3 quid, slow walks in the parks, mooch about Tesco for snacks. And if it's winter, we can even wear our leather jacket in comfort too.

Thankfully, we've got an AhFuckit Trip coming up soon to look forward to!

Hatyai Hopalong Photolog