Why do cars have to break down in the middle of the road?

why car stop middle road

…and other rhetorical questions. There was a minor fender bender
that rendered this car unable to move on its own accord (no pun
intended) near the King Center roundabout. This resulted in a massive
traffic jam (it’s already an area prone to traffic congestion). It took
me a whole hour (!!!) to drive out that stretch of road that couldn’t
have been more than 400 meters. Fucking waste of time, if you ask me…

In other unrelated news, this fictional phone conversation happened just five minutes ago:

Me: Hey, x‘s phone is off, what’s up with that?
L: His phone is not off, he “ki chia” already.
*ki chia is a Hokkien word which can mean a variety of things. The literal translation is “go up car” and it can be used to mean:
1. Arrested by police.
2. Dead.
3. Mobilize/regroup.
In this context, it means #1
Me: What happened?
L: I heard someone dobbed him in, was arrested just last weekend in town.
Me: Okay, so who’s the new contact for ice (crystal methamphetamine) now?
L: Here’s the new guy.
(gives number)

Now, this is a piece of disturbing news, not just because Malaysia
has declared “Dadah Musuh Negara #1!!! (Drugs is the country’s #1
enemy) Yeah! Kami menentang puas puas dadah ini!!! Kami perlu gahmen
beritahu kami apa nak buat kerana kami semua bodoh bodoh and just
waiting for instructions, sir, yes sir!” and all that shit, but because
Mr. L has a reputation of dobbing in people when he’s arrested – giving
out drug dealer’s (and when there’s none, he apparently goes for drug users)
personal details in exchange for his own freedom. He apparently has no
qualms doing that, his bread and butter lies (no pun intended) in the
prostitution business and drugs are just his sideline, which he is
slowly distancing himself from. Now, given this information, would any
sane tweaker (it can be argued that the two words form an oxymoron –
there aren’t any sane tweakers out there ;)) pick up from the new
contact?

It’s another rhetorical question.

Magic book

magic book

This, my friends, is a fine work of literature. I’m sure most of you
remember these things from your youth…they retail for RM 0.10 (that’s
a scant 10 cents, though it was a large sum when I was in the target
age group). They come in a variety of cliched incarnations like “Rocky
Stallone” (shown above) to “Desperately Seeking Susan” (the Madonna
film) for the ones amongst us who has started to “feel funny” towards
girls. πŸ˜‰

magic book back

The instructions for the use of this book is fairly
straightforward…basically, you use a pencil or a coin to reveal the
pre-printed (but invisible, thus the word “magic” in “Magic Book”)
images.

magic book blank

Anyway, the images are not invisible per se when you hold it
sideways against a light, but normally, you won’t be able to see it
until you shade it with a pencil or use a coin to rub the pages.

Here’s an example of using a pencil to shade:

magic book pencil

The best technique is to run the pencil sideways to get maximum
shadage (if there’s such a word, reading these magic books does not
improve linguistic capabilities, obviously ;)).

magic book pencil done
This is the finished page. It depicts some scene in Rocky (the movie).

Here’s an example of using a coin to reveal the images:

magic book coin

It’s important not to rub the coin too hard against the paper, as
this can result in tearage (there goes my vocabulary again, curse you
magic book) or if too much pressure is applied, the picture would not
come out at all.

magic book coin done
This is the finished example of using a coin. It also depicts a scene from the movie.

Now the funny thing about these books is – there’s only one or two
pages with what the cover suggests it contains. The bulk remainder
consists of images of generic robots and other stuff that presumably
appeals to boys.

magic book robot 1

magic book robot 2

magic book robot 3

Interesting stuff, I tell you. It’ll keep you occupied for…er,
seconds. We were trying hard to finish the book once the nostalgic
factor wore off. I never did bother with coloring the images when I was
young, I just wanted to make them show. Books are good for you – start
reading young! πŸ˜‰

Carmelle dessert

original carmelle box

Carmelle dessert with caramel sauce! I love these things! I was
surprised when I saw a box of Carmelle on the supermarket shelves. I
thought this wonderful product has been discontinued! It looked similar
to the ones that I remembered – it has the familiar green packaging and
the unmistakable upturned custard with caramel sauce picture on it. I
used to eat heaps of these when I was in primary school. They came in
individual serve packets then, about 10 to a pack, instead of one large
portion that it comes packaged in now. Otherwise, it all looks the
same, right down to the brand name. Sweet nostalgia! πŸ™‚

carmelle sachets

This is what the Carmelle box contains – there’s a pack of custard
yellow powder and a sachet of thick caramel. It’s officially called a
vanilla flavored dessert mix with caramel topping, but it tastes like
custard with caramel topping. It’s ingenious really…the caramel is
sticky and thick and when the heated custard liquid is poured over it,
it slowly melts and becomes a topping, instead of mixing into the
liquid.

carmelle milk

All it requires is some milk, and we’re good to go! It’s just like I remembered…

carmelle caramel

I made this with my girlfriend yesterday, before I came back. The
caramel sachet was squeezed into two bowls instead of one to make it
set faster.

carmelle hot milk

The milk was brought to a boil…

carmelle stir

and the custard sachet emptied into the boiling milk, taking care to stir semi-vigorously for about two minutes.

hot carmelle

The boiling custard mix was then poured into the bowls (which already has the caramel in it) and left alone to cool.

Once an appropriate amount of time has passed (this can be done by
doing the “jiggle test” – basically, gently agitate the receptacle your
custard is in and watch the movements of the custard to infer the
solidity ;)), the bowl was overturned into a plate.

carmelle

This is what Carmelle looks like – custard with a caramel topping. I
like to have it semi-solid, it goes down better than way. Carmelle is a
quick and easy dessert and it tastes great!

carmelle eat

Happy eating! I love creme caramel!

Sibu kampua mee

sibu kampua mee

This is my favorite place for no-frills kampua mee in Sibu. Everyone
has their favorite stall and most would swear by that one. Basically,
kam pua mee is a noodle dish that can be made within seconds – dropping
the noodles into a hot, boiling broth and then mixing it with oil (some
use vegetable, but purists will accept nothing but pork), soy sauce
(optional), chilli sauce (optional) and spring onions and fried onions.
It is then served with several slices of char siew or BBQ pork and a
bowl of soup. It’s fast food, Sibu style.

sibu kampua sauce
The sauce is prepared first according to your order – you can choose to
have it plain (just ask for kampua), with soy sauce (“kampua puak tau
yu” in Foochow, tau yu being soya/soy sauce), with chilli sauce
(“kampua puak lak”, lak being a direct translation of “hot”) or both
(“kampua puak lak puak tau yu”, cascading the words).

sibu kampua cooking
The noodles is then dropped into the boiling broth and cooked for a
while. You can opt for the flat noodles if you want, otherwise the
default is the round noodles.

sibu kampua mixing
The cooked noodles is then mixed with the sauce(s).

sibu kampua soy chilli
This is how I like my kampua – with chilli sauce and soya sauce.

sibu kampua closeup
Here’s a closer look at the kampua mee.

I’m back in Kuching

kch safe sound

I have arrived safe and sound in Kuching. πŸ™‚ Oh, and I just said
that I was carrying only legit scripts to cover my ass, I had
some…er, items that does not come with the prerequisite prescription
in my effects. πŸ˜‰ Nevertheless, that is moot now that I walked past the
sleepy customs officer. I have to apologize for the lack of proper
updates these days, I’ve not been getting enough sleep and I want to
get some rest today before I go back to work again tomorrow. I’ll post
up the huge backlog of posts and reply all the comments tomorrow.

martell vsop cognac

Thanks again for all the comments, I shall partake in this Martell VSOP cognac now and catch up with Mr. Sandman.

Here’s a photo of me and my girlfriend before I boarded the flight:

me louisa before flight

No, I don’t know why I’m staring vacantly into space, perhaps sleep would help. :p

Rivotril 2 mg clonazepam

roche rivotril 2mg
“A good doctor never disappoints!”

I will be flying back to Kuching later today and I have sorted out
most of the things I intended to do, including a visit to my favourite
medical practitioner in the whole wide world! He never disappoints, as
usual. =D He took one look at me and recognized me! He knew what I was
here for and he giveth with open arms (or flowing bottles rather). Heh.

never go wanting again

I will not be telling you the exact number of 2 mg Roche Rivotril
clonazepam tablets I got from him, on the account that it is not a wise
thing to divulge, both for his professional integrity and my personal
interests. I will reveal that the number of tablets is in the 3 digits
though. πŸ˜‰ Naturally, the price tag is in the 3 figure ballpark as
well, but I get a legitimate script for it, so there’s the value added
bit!

I love this doctor. He never asks me any inane questions about my
psychiatric health and never raises an eyebrow regarding the number of
tablets I request for. He’s also very kind in making sure that all the
paperwork is done correctly, so if there’s anyone in customs planning
to inspect me, I have but five words for you:

“I have a doctor’s prescription”

πŸ™‚

I’ll reply all comments when I arrive in Kuching later tonight, have
to do some…er, “creative packing” to make all my items appear
legitimate. Not that I have anything I shouldn’t have in my effects,
mind. I have consumed everything I obtained from my pharmacy
friend/relative, leaving only legitimate doctor’s prescriptions. Till
then, wish me a safe flight!

The Devil’s Kiss

the devils kiss

This afternoon was baking day at the sixthseal.com bakery. That, of
course, is just really my girlfriend’s kitchen – she has more baking
stuff than my kitchen does, coz my family doesn’t spend time doing
things like baking. We made a Devil’s food cake which I’ll like to call
The Devil’s Kiss. Yes, it was from a cake mix, but we customized it
(er…kinda), so there. :p

Recipe for The Devil’s Kiss:

moist devils food
One Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Devil’s Food cake mix

hersheys kisses
One pack of Hershey’s Kisses

dairy whip
One can of Dairy Whip whipped cream

dunhill old master
One Dunhill Scotch Master “Finest Scotch Whisky”

and the things that the cake mix requires, which wasn’t much – 3
eggs, 1 1/3 cups of water, and 1/2 cup of vegetable oil. Nothing you
would be hard pressed to find in any kitchen (even mine).

cake mix water

We started out by pouring the cake mix into the mixing bowl and
adding in 1 1/3 cups of water. I don’t know the exact empirical figures
for “cups” so we didn’t bother with conversion to SI units like litres,
and just poured in (literally) one full cup and another filled a third
up.

cake mix oil

Next, we added in the vegetable oil. I was a bit doubtful when I
read this…a recipe that calls for cooking oil instead of butter for
cake seems kinda dodgy. However, that’s what it says on the package, so
that’s what it’s going to be. My girlfriend handled the huge cooking
oil bottle while I took a photo – we did not bother with cups because
that would mean more things to wash up after we’re done. πŸ˜‰

It should be noted that more than 1/2 cup of vegetable oil was
poured in…the oil container is as unwieldy as it looks, and while I
sat on the frontlines to monitor the pourage (meaning, I sat on my ass
while I watched her pouring it), too much oil got into the mix. I was
going like “yeah, that looks about right, you can stop now, thanks” and
my gf was still going at and I was like “OMG, stop!” and she was still
going at it and when I finally put the digicam down and took the
cooking oil bottle away from her (it’s dangerous in her hands), I
guesstimated that more than one cup of oil landed into the mix. Oh
well…

cake mix eggs

Anyway, three large eggs were cracked into the mix after that. It’s
noteworthy to say that all these preparations took a long time and we
did not follow the recipe religiously, and spent ample time doing other
stuff while the mix was lying there. I also added about 6 shots of
Dunhill scotch whisky into the mix. I was considering whether to go for
Chivas Regal or this one, and decided on this one, because it tastes
better than Chivas.

drinking makes baking fun

I also took the liberty of adding some whisky into myself at this
point. The recipe calls for 30 seconds of stirring, and I felt that
having a drink in my hand would make the task much more pleasurable. πŸ˜‰
One does get sick of cheap alcohol, so this premium scotch is a very
welcome drink instead and makes the baking process much better. It goes
very well with clonazepam too, but don’t add that into the baking mix,
for Christ’s sake.

cake mix stir

Thus, I stirred the mix for about 30 seconds (or until I was tired of stirring, didn’t know which came first, really).

prepped cake tin

Now, we realized that we need to find an appropriate receptacle for
our cake mix, so we searched for one. The candidates were: a small
circular cake tin, a long bread mould tin and a square cake tin. We
chose the last one and used butter to grease the inside and finely
powdered it with flour as per the cake mix instructions.

cake mix beat

The cake mix, which now contains the original Devil’s food mix,
three large eggs, water, vegetable oil, and scotch whisky was processed
with one of them cake mixers for two minutes or so. The box said two
minutes anyway, we did not time ourselves, we just looked at the very
hypnotic swirls until we shook ourselves and realized that the cake mix
seems to be smooth.

unkiss kisses

I then proceeded to prepare the Hershey’s Kisses by unwrapping it
from the foil and pulling out those damned liners. I like to call this
“unkissing the kisses”.

cake mix pour

The cake mix was poured into the cake tin…

cake mix kisses

and Hershey’s Kisses were dropped into the mix at random spots. I
used up the whole packet, there is bound to be one in every square inch
of the cake.

enter oven

Finally, we realized that we have not pre-heated the oven and did
so. It should be noted that I did not want to do any calculations to
change Fahrenheit to Celsius so I let my girlfriend set the heat
settings to what “should be about right” for a cake. The cake mix is
finally inserted into the oven.

waited
We waited…

and waited
and waited…

exit cake

and I finally took the cake out of the oven with this nifty cake tin lifter when it looked right.

cake not done

My girlfriend poked a hole in the middle with a toothpick and it came out moist, so back to the oven it was…

devils food cake

I present to you…the final product! We had waited for about 15
minutes and took the cake back out again. My gf then proceeded to poke several
holes across the cake while laughing hysterically. My
cake…sabotaged… :p Oh, by the way, the crack in the middle is
apparently the result of taking it out before it was fully done and
putting it back in again. The temperature differential shock tends to
make it go that way.

Download:
The Devil’s Kiss [sixthseal.com]
Requires Apple Quicktime. Unzip the file for the video clip.

devils food nitrous

The movie clip shows me eating the cake with some nitrous oxide,
er…I mean, some whipped cream. It should be noted that whipped cream
uses nitrous oxide (N20) as a propellant:

nitrous oxide

However, if you’re expecting to get recreational hits of nitrous off
a whipped cream bottle, you’re going to be very disappointed. It’s only
a small canister, and the dispensing system will produce whipped cream
no matter now tenderly you manipulate the nozzle to produce nitrous
oxide. You’re not going to get anywhere near recreational doses off
this, and it’s not for the lack of trying. I did, and the best I could
do was get a minute amount into my lungs and my exertions expended the
nitrous canister of the whipped cream container…which made it produce
sludge instead of whipped cream. Oops…my bad. I didn’t realize it had
such a small amount of nitrous in the bulb. Stick with nitrous
canisters and crackers and leave the whipped cream container alone. πŸ˜‰

devils food cake slice

Here’s a shot of a slice of The Devil’s Kiss with some…er, cream
sludge. It tasted pretty good actually, but it was a little too rich (I
think it was the oil). I’ll tell you something interesting…it seems
that some of the Hershey’s Kisses were preserved intact in the final
cake! The scotch did not shine through though, probably due to the
overpowering chocolate taste. Nevertheless, it was a great experiment
and it yielded a rather tasty cake. πŸ™‚

I had wanted to name it The Devil’s Kiss with Angel’s Cum on it, but
I didn’t think that would be a very appealing name for a cake so I’ll
settle with The (Drunk) Devil’s Kiss (unofficial name) or Devil’s Food
Cake with Hershey’s Kisses and whipped cream, for a more orthodox name.
πŸ˜‰

Thanks to Renee of shiokadelicious! [shiokadelicious.com] for baking tips.

Sushi Tie

sushi tie

Sushi Tie is another Japanese food establishment in Sibu. My
girlfriend’s brother works there and we decided to head over for dinner
tonight.

sushi tie interior

Sushi Tie is another outlet which embraces the “open kitchen”
concept. The interior is slightly larger that Akira Sushi, but most of
it comprises of sushi bar style seating with only a couple of booths.

sushi tie open kitchen

There isn’t a revolving sushi bar in here…instead, the space is
taken up by chefs preparing your order and you can actually see them go
about it while you wait with your green tea. The view is rather
obstructed from our end – it’s better at the seating booths, but all
those were taken and I didn’t want to impose on their dining experience
by squeezing in and taking a shot. πŸ™‚

sushi tie green tea

We were served green tea while we waited for our orders to arrive.
It was the conventional hot water with green tea sachet type instead of
the proper brewed ones. Not that I could differentiate between the two.
*cough* It’s just something I noticed.

sushi tie chirashi don

I had the Chirashi Don which goes for RM 10.50. It has various
slices of sushi like salmon, tuna, prawn, basically the cold raw cuts
on top of rice. It came with a wonderful side dish which I can’t put my
finger on, but it was good.

sushi tie unagi don

My girlfriend had the Unagi Don. That’s eel on top of rice. It
wasn’t her first choice, she wanted chicken terikayi, but I wanted to
broaden her dining horizons so I kinda ordered for her. :p This one was
very good, the eel came out all oily (in a good way) and tasty.

sushi tie miso

The food was all served with a steaming bowl of miso soup.

sushi tie hokkigai

This is hokkigai sushi. That’s raw whelk. It was surprisingly fresh
and tasty. The offerings of Sushi Tai far surpass Akira Sushi in terms
of fresh produce.

sushi tie maguro sashimi

We shared some maguro sashimi as well. Or rather, I ate most of it,
since my gf doesn’t like these things. It’s good, and cheap, at RM 3.90.

sushi tie slimy

Now this is the obligatory “slimy dish” – chuka itako/hotate/kurage
(baby octopus, scallop wing, jelly fish). I managed to get my gf to eat
one of it, despite her protests.

The bill came out to around RM 40 (without alcohol, they don’t serve
sake or Japanese beer here). I like Sushi Tie, the ambience is much
better compared to Akira Sushi and the preparations seems to be less
“mass produced” and is generally fresher and thus more pleasing to the
palate. I highly recommend the Chirashi Don and Unagi Don, they were
perfect, surprisingly so for Sibu. I give this establishment a big
thumbs up. Plus, you just gotta love this sign:

sushi tie sign

KFC Tom Yam Crunch

finger lickin tom yam
It’s finger lickin’ good Tom Yam!

Tom Yam Crunch is the latest incarnation of the tried and true
Kentucky Fried Chicken’s…er, chicken. There’s now Hot & Spicy
(introduced in the mid ’90s) and Tom Yam Crunch in addition to Original
Recipe. There is no indication that Tom Yam Crunch will be a “limited
edition” run, so I’m assuming that it’s going to be fully integrated
into the KFC chicken menu.

sanders tom yam

It even receives Colonel Sander’s approval in this promo runout. πŸ˜‰
It goes “Your favourite chicken, now in Tom Yam. Try It!” I’m sure most
of you have seen the TV commercials about this as well. I can’t say
that I’m chomping at the bit to try it, since it seems to be just a bit
of spices thrown on a fried chicken, and that doesn’t inspire me to
make an immediate visitation to see how well it tastes.

kfc tom yam crunch

Here’s another one of the promotional posters…this one goes “Tom
Yam now served inside. (Spoons and bowls not required)”. I should not
have gone late at night during Labor Day though because the place was
absolutely packed. Nevertheless, we wrestled the hordes of hungry
patrons and placed our order for KFC’s new Tom Yam Crunch Chicken.

tomyam crunch

The first impression did not give any visual clues to differentiate
these pieces of chicken parts to the standard offerings. However, when
a bite was taken out of a drumstick – that’s when the Tom Yam taste
shines out. It does taste like Tom Yam! It’s remarkably similar to Tom
Yam. I’ll even go so far to say that if someone liquidifies the skin
and feeds it to me in a blind taste test with the other item being real
Tom Yam soup, I’ll have a hard time differentiating it!

tom yam crunch macro

Okay that last bit was a bit too far, but you get my point. πŸ˜‰ I
find that Tom Yam Crunch is a great addition to the existing flavours
of Kentucky Fried Chicken’s meat (which is exclusively chicken, this is
moot). It was spicy and preserves the Tom Yam essence with its skin.
Only the skin has the Tom Yam taste, the inside doesn’t. The macro
photo above shows the smattering of spices on the skin of a piece of
thigh.

tom yam xtreme

There is an existing promotion that sells Nestle Drumstick X-treme
for only RM 1.50 instead of RM 2.60 with any order of Tom Yam Crunch.
We opted into that promotion, I like the X-treme ice creams, it’s like
chocolate times two.

tom yam crunch chicken

Back to the chicken, my girlfriend liked it as well, though she said
it was a little too spicy and she didn’t like the signature sourish
taste of Tom Yam that permeated this Tom Yam Crunch chicken.
Personally, I feel that it’s a great addition to KFC’s meagre stable of
chicken flavors. It’s faithful to the Tom Yam essence and yet manages
to strike a balance between that and the tricky bit of infusing a fried
chicken piece with that flavor. They did it well. I give it a thumbs up!

tom yam ask for it
KFC Tom Yam Crunch. Ask for it!

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