Monday, November 30, 2009
Finally attempted my Benedict Salad last night! It was a hell lot of work and a definite pain in the ass to do - definitely not something you can whip up in an instant for a quick meal. I'll process the photos this weekend and post the recipe up.
Wenky
8:28 AM
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Sunday, November 29, 2009
More silly things I took off the net:
1. As usual, poor English. And the best part? It's a gov.tw address.
2. But alas, even BBC errs sometimes when it comes to awkward sentence structures. Apparently Lincoln was writing to some boy who has been put on sale.
Wenky
7:46 AM
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Saturday, November 28, 2009
word of the day = SHOOK.
It's just too funny,
Wenky
8:24 AM
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Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Typical.
The Department held some silly corporate event at Ubin sometime last week, and I was at first fairly interested. Come on, it's Ubin! The huge Golden Orb spiders notwithstanding, it's a lovely place for nature-hunting. Then I realised that they were playing games. Why not just hold it in some playground, if they're going to ignore the nature and use it as some giant walking path?
But as I said, typical. Administrators.
Wenky
1:36 PM
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Tuesday, November 24, 2009
已
累了
弃了
尽了
心
剖了
疼了
麻了
故
想了
避了
止了
Wenky
7:43 AM
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Saturday, November 21, 2009
Yx is drunk. Very, very drunk. She was stumbling all around on the way to the car, and was singing at the top of her lungs in the shower. And she also made me blog about how drunk she is. Now THAT is drunk.
Wenky
11:34 PM
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Gastronomia has been updated, with a new root vegetable salad.
Wenky
5:27 PM
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Monday, November 16, 2009
Goodbye, Fish Tank
After almost 9 years in service, I'm finally decomissioning my 4 footer tank. This is my 3rd marine tank; I started off with a 1 foot tank back in the days when I still kept Titan, my oscar fish, followed by a most precarious 4 footer right outside my bedroom. This was finally upgraded to the system as we know now, and in her heydays she was a full-fledged reef. Unfortunately, due to multiple and very costly equipment failures, she is now out of service. This morning, one of her pipes sprung a small leak, and I have now shut off her circulation system. The house now seems very quiet (almost disquieting) without the familiar sound of running water. It will be a few weeks yet before all her presence is gone from the house.
Will I get a new tank, in the new house? I can't say right now. Reefs take an extraordinary amount of effort to upkeep, both in monetary terms and in the time invested. And even if I do eventually get another one, it'll be a nano system, no more than 2 feet in length.
Reefkeeping has evolved much, even from the first years of my venture into them. During my 1 foot tank era, the Jaubert Plenum system was all the rage. This evolved into a period of deep sand beds, massive amounts of live rock, and all of a sudden, we've reverted back to the very basics of little/no sand and aggressive protein skimming. Then came the technology. New wavemaker technology, lighting technology and complete reefkeeping computer systems that measure the Redox potential, pH and whatnot. Still, after seeing the real stuff during dives, I've come to realise that no matter what I do at home, it will be but just a feeble imitation of the great reefs out there - a bonsai reef, if you will. The reef tanks of today are but a hard-fought battle to bring into control an equilibrium that has existed for millions of years, a laboratory glass box filled with probes and pumps, but woefully still lacking the biological processes and planktonic life that sustains the seas.
I still relish the thought of bringing back a minuscule slice of a reef in my own living room, but until then, I concede defeat.
Wenky
1:35 PM
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Sunday, November 15, 2009
The weekend passes so quickly when you're working! =(
Attended a dinner on Saturday night, it's a school function. Quite a few things happened regarding this, and I'm a little flummoxed, to tell the truth. I can be a lot of things, but of others ... I certainly am not sure if it's trust misplaced. And there comes a whole load of responsibility together with appointment, as I have learnt through the years. Just feeling a little wrong-footed. Met with a previous JC senior who was also dragged into this, and it really set me thinking a lot over the weekend.
What am I searching for, all these years? What do I really want?
My veggie diet is going well, but alas, such is the bane of modern living. My schemes get disrupted by work, calls, and family dinners. We ate japanese today, and I was hard-pressed to get anything non-starchy. Eating sashimi for the entire meal would have qualified, but seriously, I can't eat that much sashimi without puking.
I'm quite amazed at how full you get can with just veggies. Bought some macadamia nut oil cheaply today, so I'm all set for the week ahead.
Wenky
11:36 PM
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Peak season is coming for work soon, alas. Feeling some sort of chronic fatigue setting in already.
Wenky
5:00 PM
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Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Another silly thing in the works .. just did up a "new" food blog. I know, Gastronomia's not really updated *that* frequently, but I just fancied spending my time in a less useless way. Click on the picture below to get to it! My old food blog will still remain as it is.
Wenky
7:10 PM
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Saturday, November 07, 2009
Had scary session today .. still a little traumatised.
Wenky
10:46 PM
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Sunday, November 01, 2009
It turned out to be a fun night! We decorated the house with the usual .. cobwebs, UV lighting, dry ice effects, Stan the skeleton sitting in the rocking chair, Bob the creepy hanging skeleton with flashing eyes, one of my scorpions in a tank with UV lighting, and creepy music. The weather was perfect too - stormy, with lightning and thunder. Everyone came dressed to the nines =)
Me - Julius Caesar
Yx - Cleopatra
Anna - Vampiress
Sebastian - Dracula
Anne-Merle - She-Devil (gotta love those blood-red contact lenses!)
Christian - Chinese zombie
Clarice - Geisha
Andrew - Indiana Jones
Kelvin - Saudi royalty
Felicia - one of the rich Saudi's wives (the 499th, to be exact)
Alvin - Captain Jack Sparrow
Serene - Pirate Girl (Jill Sparrow)
Brownie - Spider Dog
And the food!! I made some creepy stuff. Breaded frog's legs with pumpkin sauce, dried cadaver meat (beef jerky actually), cadaver stew in a carved pumpkin (beef stew), maggotty fruits (vanilla ice cream, avocado, fake maggots made of rice puffs and bandung) and a few shots - Brain Haemorrhage, Graveyard and Eyeball Mojito. Jenny made this totally disgusting dessert called Dirt Cake that's SUPER GROSS, but SUPER NICE. It looks like a piace of garden earth, complete with earthworms. I think she used chocolate fudge, oreo and gummy earthworms. Oh, and Brownie completed the horror set-up by attacking Anne-Merle and leaving 2 bleeding marks on her. =o
We headed down to Raffles Town Club after, for some bowling in our costumes. Ha .. got some stares. Seriously, it's one of those things that you can only do with a group.
Been pondering a little about life lately... maybe more on this later.
Wenky
12:32 AM
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