Monday, July 24, 2006

Life Poster


That's our Life Poster - fragments of events that we've shared, cherished and remembered. Moments in time captured and recorded, and to be reflected many years later.

It took me only a few minutes to complete the Life Poster, but I gained much more. I remembered all the good times I've had with my parents, my sister and with sp - there was the time we had BBQ at my parents' place, times I spent with sp at home, cooking together, holidays together, getting married to each other...

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Alpine Steamboat

shutterjam invited us to his home for a steamboat dinner last Saturday. It was the day before "The Great Water Outage of Penang" that would have affected the whole southeast portion of Penang Island.

I was looking forward to the steamboat dinner. I didn't know how much work would be involved in preparing for a steamboat meal. Now I know the amout of effort my mom made everytime we had a steamboat dinner.

It was a potluck dinner so sp and I went to Tesco to get some ingredients - some "patin" fish, squid, prawns, tang hoon noodles (which we later discovered is called "soh hoon" and nowhere on the package is written the words "tang hoon"), mushrooms and some vegetables.

I didn't know how to gut a fish, so I called mom and she gave us instructions. sp got the hang of it pretty quick! We prepped everything at home but left a few small things to do at shutterjam's home.



There was a flurry of activity at shutterjam's home. Quail eggs were boiled and shelled by sp and bigfish's wife. If I knew shelling eggs were that much fun, I'd join in as well.


We had quite a big spread. shutterjam wanted to try out his new "Princess" multi-purpose cooker and we were willing volunteers.


Steamboat has been around for some time. A quick visit to Wikipedia and we discover:

Hot pot, also known as Steamboat, is a communal dish which originates from Mongolia, but now eaten in a variety of forms throughout East Asia. It consists of a simmering pot of stock at the center of the dining table. While the hot pot is kept simmering, ingredients are placed into the pot and are cooked at the table.

A watched kettle never boils... so is a watched pot. It took a long time for the soup to boil. We can't really blame the multicooker because nowhere on the packaging does it say to use it for steamboat.


Not to worry. We did get to eat the steamboat, and it was pretty good.


This is the part I casually move to the sofa - the cleaning up phase of the evening. Everyone's busy cleaning up the dishes and clearing the leftovers. Me? Well, you can see for yourself. I'm the guy behind the camera.


We had a great time. I was so happy that I suggested we do the next steamboat dinner at our place. Wait... did I read that right? Aaauuuggghhh!!! What have I done?!?

Monday, July 17, 2006

Making Faces

bigfish has succumb to our constant nagging by shutterjam and myself to "buy! buy! buy!" and got himself the Dell XPS 1210. It's a sweet deal, and look at what we discovered his webcam can do.



Monday, July 03, 2006

Scrumptious Seafood!

sp joined her friends for a Friday night barbeque and that left me to find something to do that night. So I rounded up my friends and we decided to try a new restaurant on the mainland.

How do you tell if a restaurant has good seafood?

1. It's really hard to get to.
2. It's nowhere near dinner time but there's already a large crowd.
3. The decor consists of gaudy lights complete with mismatched tables and chairs in an alley.

The restaurant we went to had the prerequisites for a good seafood restaurant. It's roughly 30 minutes away from Penang Island if the traffic is good. It took us about an hour to reach Ah Ean's restaurant in a small village somewhere in Batu Kawan. The road leading to the restaurant is narrow, barely enough to fit 2 cars side by side, and had potholes littered liberally along the stretch. An encouraging sign that the food will be good.

We arrived at 6.30pm. It's a little early for dinner but there was already a large crowd there to greet us. Tables after tables were laden with seafood and the diners hardly looked up from their meal as we gingerly walked across the wet uneven floor to find an empty table. Big crowd and it's still early. Another good sign.

We found an empty table at the end of the alley that is the restaurant. Gaudy lights. Check! Mismatched tables and chairs. Check! We're going to have an awesome seafood dinner!


There were 4 of us and we ordered 7 dishes - crab cooked in sweet and sour sauce, soft-shelled crabs, spicy steamed fish, "la-la", "ikan bakar", "hair-ko" and deep fried "sotong". My favourites were the crab cooked in sweet and spicy sauce and the deep fried "sotong". The crab was delicious. I could get at the meat so easily and the sauce was matched perfectly with the crab.

My least favourite was the "ikan bakar". It wasn't authentic "ikan bakar". I guess Chinese restaurants haven't mastered grilled fish like the Malays. The "ikan bakar" was hard, dry and the sauce didn't do it for me.


We cleaned up all the plates. 4 people. 7 dishes. Nothing left.

I've actually been to this restaurant before. Eight years ago. The place hardly changed. There's much more parking space and maybe extra tables. I couldn't remember how to get to An Ean's restaurant, but luckily we had a map.

I'm definitely going back again. This time with sp.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Mobile Tunes

Everywhere I go, chances are I'd spot someone using an MP3 player. The iPod's signature white earphone wires catches my eyes, drawing my gaze to where the wearer stashed the iPod on his person. Sometimes it's an iPod, other times it's not, but the wearers have something in common - they're usually alone.

I guess that's not surprising because that's the only time when wearing earphones in public wouldn't seem rude. I wouldn't be wearing earphones if I'm out with friends. And even if I'm alone, I'd remain alone because who would want to start a conversation when the person is wearing earphones. Then again, it may not be such a bad thing if I'm not feeling particularly chatty that day.

I found myself wanting an MP3 player - something that uses iTunes to transfer my music because all my MP3s are already organised by iTunes. Apple's iPods are probably the only MP3 player that natively works with iTunes, but they're not cheap. So what are the alternatives?

I surprised sp, and myself, when I set my sights on the Motorola Razr V3i. It was everything I wanted in a mobile phone, and has iTunes support! The Razr V3i is a clamshell design that's very slim and looks great. The body is aluminium with micro engraving that catches the light and makes the whole phone shimmer. The effect is very arresting and adds glamour to the already good looking phone.

Best of all is the iTunes support. The interface is pretty similar to the iPod's, but is not as smooth on the Razr. Transferring music to the Razr is a test of patience. It's slow. Very slow. The Razr is limited to 50 songs with a 256MB miniSD card, and transfering all 50 songs takes roughly 20 minutes. I didn't time it, but it felt like 20 minutes, maybe more.

These are minor faults for me. I'm enamoured by the good looks of the Razr and enjoy listening to my music with the iTunes player with the stereo handsfree kit from Motorola. The handsfree kit is uncomfortable to wear for long periods but the volume is more than adequate and the audio quality is pretty good for my untrained ears. I had no choice but to use the clumsy Motorola stereo headset because the Razr only has one mini-USB that does the charging, synchronisation and audio output.

I can't bear earphones so I decided I needed to be able to use my headphones with the Razr. Imagine my disappointment when a Motorola representative told me bluntly that there is no adapter for a 3.5-inch audio jack. Several emails and phone calls later, I had a buddy of mine who's in the US to get me an adapter from a Cingular outlet. The adapter is pricey but I think it will be worth it in the long run. I don't know when I'll receive the adapter, so I'll bear with the Motorola earphones for now.

I'm perfectly happy with my Razr V3i. I use the iTunes function the most. Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too?