Leading the wild into the ways of the man…
I woke up feeling rather bummed, and the cat, sensing my less than
stellar mood, made a motherly sounding meow and produced a dead mouse
(sans head) and put it in front of me. Perhaps it thought I was hungry
and wanted to share her personal stash of food. I apologize for saying
“bad cat”. Force of habit. Thanks for sharing.
My girlfriend will be heading to KL tomorrow afternoon. She’s going to continue her course there. 11771554.
I made a Pavlova
[users.bigpond.net.au] today from one of those egg shaped instant mixes
called Pavlova Magic. A Pavlova is a dessert popular in Australia and
New Zealand. I got it from Melbourne before I came back and finally got
around to baking it with my girlfriend today. It was pretty easy and
fool proof to make, there was a packet with the Pavlova mix in the egg
and an instruction sheet. Basically, I just filled the bottom part of
the shell with luke warm water and the top part of the shell with
caster suger and mixed it all together. The instruction sheet has a lot
of strange instructions in BOLD like “turn the cake mixer to full speed
for ONE MINUTE ONLY” and “put the resulting mix into the oven and TURN
THE HEAT DOWN TO 110 c IMMEDIETLY”. Whatever.
We didn’t have a cake tray so we just dumped the mix into a baking
tray and shoved it into the oven. The Pavlova turned out pretty good
though. It was crispy-ly sweet at the bottom and nicely aerated in the
middle and wonderfully sweet and creamy at the top. However, there was
a lot of sugar syrup at the bottom of the Pavlova. I wonder if that’s
meant to be?
Wow, am I domesticated or what? 😉
My poor dying brain cells
Deprived of oxygen, they starve
I can’t breath, they scream
Distilled, blended and bottled in Scotland
I went out with the guys today to Together Tea House. It’s the one
behind Methodist High School (my alma mater). It has been open for a
couple of months, but I haven’t been there before. You have to take off
your shoes before entering the place and you sit around a very low
Japanese style table.
Interestingly, there is a pit under the table, so you can sit
normally and put your feet into the pit if you want, or you can just
sit cross legged on cushions.
The food was okay, but nothing to write home about. I had the Heng
Hua fried bee hoon (rice vermicelli). I’m Heng Hua but puzzlingly, this
is the first time I’ve heard of a Heng Hua style fried bee hoon. 🙂
Anyway, we also had some kind of sushi which was alright. I had a fried
ice cream for dessert too, it was pretty good, but people don’t come
here for the food anyway.
The main business of the day would be tea, and we also ordered a pot
of some kind of tea, but I forgot what it was called. People come to
the Together Tea House because they have a traditional tea ceremony
thing going. We didn’t know how to make the tea though, and the only
waitress seemed more interested in talking to the other staff instead
of serving the customers. However, we got another waitress to do the
ceremony for us, and it was pretty interesting. The tea was good too.
Anyway, the most interesting thing in this place is the toilets.
It’s so gaily (gayly?) decorated that taking care of business becomes a
pleasure. 😉 I was apprehensive at first at the logistics involved in
going to a public toilet when I didn’t have any shoes on (we left our
shoes at the door), but my concerns turned out to be unfounded because
they have a courtesy pair of slippers inside the toilet, which was
thankfully dry.
I got this from Daniel:
Thanks buddy! It’s a MMORPG public beta test he got from Singapore.
There is a User Guide and an Installation CD, and I bet it would be pure fun to
play on a server in Singapore on a 56 kbps modem (I’m still on dial-up
in Sibu) which usually only produces around 28.8 kbps at the best of
times. It sure would be interesting to try. 🙂
I have been having sneezing fits and a runny nose every time I pick
up the new kitten. The cat has recently given birth to a brown kitten
(she’s champagne colored herself) and I have an allergic reaction to
the kitten. I’ll sneeze and sneeze everytime I pick the kitten up and
it’s so small and nice that I still want to pick it up regardless.
Anyway, I don’t know much about the reproductive systems of cats, but
the mother is still lactating even after all this while. I know because:
1. I get milk on my hands when I touch the mother’s nipples
2. The kitten is still breast feeding (it stops when I’m looking though)
Anyway, my parents are coming back from their Beijing (China) trip
the day after, so tomorrow will be the last day I have the house to
myself.
Afternote: Kai Sing Guo = Nimetazepam (a benzodiazepine). The pills are brand name Erimin-5 pills. Read this [sixthseal.com] for more info.
What exactly is this thing? I acquired one of this tonight for RM 15
(A$ 7.50). The local street name here is “kai sing guo” which literally
translates to “fruit of happiness”. It’s definitely a pharmaceutical of
some sort, but I didn’t get it from a pharmacy if you get what I mean.
It’s mainly used here to ease the come down from methamphetamines
(people use it to sleep after taking meth pills). A search of
rxlist.com returned two probable matches – Phenobarbital (a
barbiturate) and Clonazepam (a benzodiazepine). If anyone could shed
some light on what exactly this is, I’ll be very appreciative. Educated
guesses will do. I took several pictures of it:
This is the front of the wrapping. It has perforated edges, which
suggests it’s part of a larger set of similar pills. The color of the
front is red and there is a “5”, the logo that looks like a four leaved
clover/square cross, and “028” in BLACK font near the bottom of the
wrapping. It’s not visible in this picture.
The back of the wrapping is silver in color with the “5”, the logo
that looks like a four leaved clover/square cross, and “028” in RED
font.
The front of the pill has a “5” imprinted and is a pink-ish color. The pill has beveled edges and no score.
The back of the pill has the logo that looks like a four leaved
clover/square cross and “028” imprinted. The pill has beveled edges and
no score.
Trip report
Time: 1:50 am
Method of ingestion: Crunched up on a fairly empty stomach
Taste: The pill tasted sweet (?) with a slightly bitter aftertaste.
1:55 am
a slight benzo feeling…numb fingers, blood rushing to the head/face region
1:28 am
sweaty palms, average loss on inhibition as if i’ve had a couple of drinks
2:05 am
hmm…feeling mildly drunk and rather much loss of inhibition. didn’t
have to think about anything if i didn’t want to, much like benzos.
slightly floaty.
2:09 am
eh, a mild hallucinogen effect when in partial darkness. face morphed
slightly and there were mild tracers when i moved my head. higher level
cognition is still intact. sounds sound better too, more 3d?
2:14 am
palms and feet sweaty. sounds sounds much louder than in real life. starting to feel somewhat drunk.
2:18 am
am i reading too much into it? feels very mildly hallucinogic in relative darkness
2:23 am
feeling very warm – definite rise in body temperature.
2:36 am
smoking felt reallly good. mesmerized by the smoke tendrils from the
cigarette. hypnotized by my feet when i took a bath. noticed more
attention to detail, like a roll of used toilet paper that was under
the door of my toilet. my eyes kept on going to it. brushing my teeth
made me notice my hands and toothbrush. closed eyes has a reddish tint.
not sure if my pupils are dilated – did look in the mirror, maybe only
slightly dilated. afterimages slightly prominent, like when i looked at
the monitor and then covered my face with a towel, the afterimage is
still there. is that also true when sober? i’ll try tomorrow.
3:00 am
feeling rather introspective. quite easily spooked too. 🙂
3:20 am
return to baseline? feeling slightly drowsy now. should be able to fall asleep if i want to
4:36 am
sorry for the infrequent updates, i could not update as frequently as i
wanted due to reasons i won’t explain (not drug related). my higher
level cognitive skills were intact. i am not at liberty to divulge
information too much information but something could have happened and
i choose for it not to. btw, this substance started out slightly
stimulating and ended up being a downer. feeling sleepy now. my guess
is that it’s some sort of short acting benzo, but i can’t be sure coz
there were some interesting qualities that were not benzo like.
P/S – Any help in identifying this pill from someone who has tried it will be very much appreciated.
My new leather wallet
I have a new wallet, courtesy of my girlfriend. We went out for
lunch today at the Valentine’s Cafe in Paramount. I had intended to
order a la carte, but they were having a buffet, so we decided to go
for that instead. My apologies for the lack of photos from there, my
girlfriend banned me from taking photos because it generates too much
attention. 😛
Anyway, there were not many dishes, only about 8, but they were all
very good. The vegies were full of garlic (just the way I like it), the
noodles were salty (mmm) and the fish is smothered with Thai chili
sauce. All in all, the food was very tasty although there wasn’t much
variety. There were only 8 main dishes, a porridge (or maybe it was
soup), two cakes and two fruits. However, in my opinion, it was worth
the price of admission. I don’t know how much the service charge was,
and whether they charge different prices for males and females (yes,
they do that here), but the bill for the both of us came to RM 20.70
(around A$10).
After eating, we headed to Wisma Sanyan to go shopping for a new
wallet. I’ve been using my old wallet for 7 (!) years, coz I love it.
There were a lot of memories associated with it. I still remember the
place I bought the wallet and whom I was with at that time. I was at
Riccarton Mall, Christchurch (forgot the store name – it was Amazon or
Jungle something) with Sam Ashton and Eito, we were getting some beer
for a house party later on and I happened to see this particular wallet
and bought it on the spot. I didn’t remember much of the party (too
many “scene missings”) but I do remember leaning out of Victoria (Sam’s
girlfriend’s) car and throwing up when I was headed home. She told me
the next day that I had gotten vomit all over the side of the car and
she had to go to a petrol station to clean it up before she went home.
Oops!
My old nylon wallet
Since then, the wallet has seen currency of six different nations
(Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, United States, Singapore and
Indonesia) and has also been drowned, burned and mutilated countless
times. It has been lost twice and returned both times (once with all
the cash missing). The first time it was lost was at a rave at Ministry
(Christchurch, NZ), where two blotters impregnated with a certain
lysergic acid created by Albert Hofmann of Sandoz Labs was consumed for
the first time. It was returned to me the next day by a friend who was
also at the rave with everything intact. Thanks Jack! The next time I
lost it was in school, it turned up at the Lost and Found with
everything NOT intact but at least it turned up. 🙂
Thus ends the life of this wallet and the beginning of a new wallet
era. I will miss you and the times we had together. The wallet is
tattered and old and feels strangely thin and impotent without its
previous contents. Rest in peace, dear friend and brother, in the third
drawer of my room’s desk.
From left: Christopher, Johnny, Ming Tze, Huai Bin (me), Ting Chuan, Thai Ling, Boyd, Daniel.
On the right hand side: Siew Ting, who doesn’t like to be photographed but ended up in the frame anyway 🙂
Not shown (left early): May Ling, Susie
I went out for supper today with a couple of my ex-classmates. It
was good to catch up with the happenings of everyone. The juiciest
gossip of the day is the apparent fact that KATHERINE LAW and ALVIN TOH
is going out! Heh. The were two confirmed sightings (one by Boyd and
the other by Ming Tze) of them holding hands while walking around in
Wisma Sanyan. Both of the sightings resulted in a subsequent loss of
physical contact between their hands when they saw the sightees. I
thought I saw Katherine last time I went to Parkson too, but I wasn’t
sure. Anyway, apparently this is a bit of a hush hush thing (for
reasons unknown). Boyd, who lives together with Alvin in KL didn’t even
know about it until recently, although he did report a suspicious
increase in communications via SMSs and ICQ msgs between Alvin and
Katherine. It’s interesting that the two ended up together, you’ll be
as surprised as everyone was if you knew them. 🙂
Anyway, tonight started with Daniel picking Johnny and myself up at
around 8:30 pm. We went to Christopher’s house, and man, is that house
sound-proof! Horns were useless in summoning anyone, so I went down and
knocked on the door, with no results. I could clearly see 4 people
talking in the living room but despite my (loud) calls of “Auntie!” no
one could hear me. I did knock on the door a couple of times, but it
took 2 full minutes before anyone could hear me (!).
Well, we got Christopher and headed over to Ting Chuan’s house. We
had planned to meet up with Thai Ling and Boyd, and May Ling and Susie
were also going to join us. Ting Chuan had made plans with Ming Tze and
Siew Ting and were going to pick them up and join us at Taman Selera
Muhibbah in Pedada later on. Anyway, I’m going into way too much detail
here. The bump on my head must have affected me in strange ways. 😉
(more about that later)
Anyway, we all met up at Taman Selera Muhibbah and talked until
11:30 pm. Why am I going into so much detail? I ask myself.
Hmm…anyway I had two cups of my favorite drink – Shi Ta Tien Wang/Shi
Ta Kai Sing (literally: four great heavenly kings/four great
happiness). It’s an ice blended drink containing coffee, horlicks, milo
and tea (thus the name). There are two names for it partly because of
the competition for customers over there. It’s absolutely insane. Every
stall will send a representative to swarm you the moment you sit down
and show you their menu. Not only that, if they see you ordering from a
competiting store, they will saunter over and whisper conspirationally
that the particular store’s stuff is not fresh and they make better
stuff. Heh.
Anyway, moving on, I bumped my head very hard on this outcropping of
stairs in my store room while trying to extract my cat from the store
room. I think I forgot my name for a couple of minutes. 🙁
I just re-learnt how to make a bra out of a handkerchief today. 🙂 We
used to do this all the time in primary school, and it was an endless
source of laughter and fun. Now that I think of it, most people in my
class in primary carried a hanky. I used to carry one too, until about
Primary 4, when I couldn’t be bothered anymore. Anyway, here’s how you
make a bra out of a handkerchief. Origami with cloth, if you like.
Get a square-ish handkerchief. This is the same one I actually used
in primary school (!). I found it in one of the drawers at my house.
It’s a wonder it’s survived all these years. Ah…memories.
Establish a center line in the middle of the hanky and fold the
handkerchief vertically (towards the center line), making sure that
both folds are of approximately equal size.
Turn the hanky over, making sure that the folds on the opposite side are not disturbed in any way.
Approximate another center and fold the sides horizontally. You
should now have about four equally sized ‘squares’ making up a larger
square.
Grip the two top squares with one hand and grip the bottom two squares with your other hand. Apply force as needed. Pull.
You now have a bra made out of a handkerchief. Har har. I’m so juvenile. 🙂
