Crabby

We(EA lvl 2 ppl) celebrated Derrick's bday yesterday.

Went for dinner at Jackson Centre where we had crabs from a seafood zi-char stall.

Took a while before the food came. And as you can see, everyone was just waiting.

A hungry man is a grumpy man. Look at Mr Bai.

Goes for women too I guess...

At last! The food arrived.

The main dish!

There was another black pepper version. But didn't get a shot of it. Was busy eating alr. Ha Ha...

Anyway, I once again reaffirmed my reluctance to eat crab. It's simply too messy!!

Check out the disaster I left behind.

And the combined effort from everyone else.

But as long as we're happy. Compare the expressions with the pre-food-arrival shot.

Group shot with everyone in it.

From one Kopitiam, we went all the way to Toa Payoh to cut the cake at another coffeeshop. LOL...

Happy Birthday Derrick!!

Btw, full set of photos are found here. And video here.

Magic Mushrooms

Nope, this isn't a post abt some hallucinogen.

Its about something I cooked. Baked rather.

My brother made some mushroom and cheese snack which turned out to be pretty nice. So I decided to have a go at it and see how mine would turn out.

Here's the result.

They're not much to look at but they are pretty tasty.

If you like mushrooms, and you like cheese. Then you would like this, cos that's all there is to it. Mozarella cheese and mini portobello mushrooms.

That was yesterday. Today, I got greedy and used the real portobello mushrooms. A much bigger version of yesterday's mushrooms. And lots more cheese.

Close up of it.

The cheese was quite "stretchy"...

Moist and chewy...

Think it's quite good alone. And BIG. Can probably work as a main dish. But I prefer the bite-sized mini ones.

I had some extra cheese. And was still hungry.

So... I made some piz-wich. Cross between a pizza and a sandwich.

OK... so its just bread, ham, tomatos and leftover mozarella. But who cares. I say its a piz-wich!

Creative Captions

Went to Suki Sushi at Cineleisure with some of the EA lvl 2 ppl today.

I'm sure you have seen all my previous posts with my own captions.

Well, here's a chance for you to give creative captions to some pictures I took.

I've included picture nos so u can reference them.

Have fun!!

1) My bro Hucks and his green tea.

2) Some soft shelled crab sushi.

3) This one's quite power. "Lobster" and salmon sushi thingy.

4) My bro Justin and his middle finger.

5) My bro Ivan and his watermelon.

6) Finish your sushi before you go play!!

7) Sushi Model.

8) Ewww...

9) This is just GAY...

10) This isn't.

11) Sails?

12) KHAO PEH AH?!?!?!

12) You win...

14) Squeezed by MRT doors?!?

15) Reach for THE star.

16) Alien abduction.

17) Arr-Doo-GEN!!

Hope you had fun!! Full set of photos can be viewed here.

Old School (Part 2)

Here's the second installment from the Old School series.

Couple of pictures I took today.

Fav pastime as usual. But this time with the master himself.

Bridge Master! Qingwei!

Btw I'm known as "The World's Worst Bridge Player". For obvious reasons...

Anyway that little table on Qingwei's right is the pantry. Here's a close up.

Note the mess tins (red arrow), clean up sponge (blue arrow) and array of mugs. Not forgetting a whole lot of munchies. Yum!

Gotta maintain a sense of hygeine. Esp with so many mugs.

Some random shots of the EA Level 2 muggers.

Alvin with his OS text.

HJ mugging away at the... erm... newspapers?!?! Must be a new module...

Where the ruler of EA Level 2 resides. Justin's throne. Must be out patrolling his territory.

That's all folks. Tune in next time!!

Accelerated Time

I swear someone has figured out how to accelerate time.

No kidding. With each passing semester, the time between the first lecture and last paper seems to be getting shorter and shorter.

I still remember the first day of school for this semester. It was a Monday. I had a one hour lesson from 4 to 5, but I was sick. I'M SERIOUS!! I had just gotten back from Tioman and was running a fever. Hence I skipped it. What a way to start the sem huh?

Well after a while I got into the swing of things, sort of. The daily grind of classes and work started to blur the weeks. But somehow, I never felt that the semester would be over THIS soon.

There was always "next week"or "the week after" to get things done. Deadlines were always "still quite far away" or "not so soon".

But before I knew it, wham bam kazam! I'm done with my last paper for the sem.

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED IN BETWEEN?!?!?!

Its like someone knocked me out and when I woke up, its time for exams... Pretty unreal.

Not that I'm complaining though. I'm actually glad that the sem is over and done with. And all the "eeky" modules are cleared (they're not gross like EE2012 or EE2011, just "eeky").

I'm just pretty puzzled as to where all the time went to. I mean it was 15 weeks afterall. You can't just zoom through it all in the wink of an eye. Or did I just?

I guess I'm just pretty stunned by how each sem seems to pass by faster and faster. I guess a good parallel to this would be kids who want to grow up faster.

As kids, we always wanted to be a teenager. Then as teens we wanted to be young adults. And each stage actually goes by faster than the last. But when we actually do become teenagers or young adults, we look back and wonder what on earth happened in between. And we wish we were kids again.

So similarly, I keep wishing that each sem would end sooner. But when it did, I looked back and wonder what I did in between. And then I wish that I could go back and do some of the stuff differently. Maybe spend a little more time studying. Or put more effort into some reports.

But I guess that's not really possible, cos the fella has probably only figured out how to accelerate time but not rewind it. So the only way to go is forward. I just hope that the next sem won't fly by me again.

Teochew Queen

Ok ok... I can hear the groans alr.

Not again... Another post abt Teochew... yawn...

But I have to post this. I met someone whom I can converse with in Teochew. Well no big deal rite? We do that all the time, buying food, talking to elderly neighbours...

But here's the twist! It was over MSN!!

Yep, definitely more challenging when you are typing it all out and trying to make sure that your message gets across.

Anyway let me introduce the Teochew Queen.

That's Yvonne (aka i wish i wish i wish).

It was pretty amusing the stuff we were talking abt.

We started off with the usual pleasantries.

Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
hello!
i wish i wish i wish... says:
yoz.. hor bor??
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
haha
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
buay pai lah
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
arh buay si
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
cham tor ai si liao
i wish i wish i wish... says:
haha.. wah.... an ni cham ar??
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
ha nor
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
jin jia cham hor
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
hak sheng ai mia jin jia cham
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
le neh?
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
le jiak pah buay?
i wish i wish i wish... says:
haha... jiak bah liaoz...
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
wah hor hor

Then we talked about work, money, studying and "career options"...

i wish i wish i wish... says:
zor gang mah si jin sian...
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
si ah?
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
zor gang wu ku li gang mah
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
wu ku li gang zhu buay sian leow
i wish i wish i wish... says:
hmm.. si lor... kua tio lui jiu jin hua hi haha....
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
hahaha
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
lui jing jia tong yao
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
bhor lui buay sai ah
i wish i wish i wish... says:
zu si lor... tak che mah si wui tio lui mah....
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
ha nor
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
ah si em si tio ai tang lui, wa zhu mai tak che leow
i wish i wish i wish... says:
bor tak ah ni zui che zor si mi haha...
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
hahaha
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
bor tak che zhu bway koi png lor
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
bway koi png mah si oi sai tang lui

Then we talked about language... My horrendous Chinese to be precise.

Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
wa bhor mi tah hua ger
i wish i wish i wish... says:
haha... wah eh zai haha..........
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
wa si khang tang
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
kim jio
i wish i wish i wish... says:
haha.... kim jio buay sek hm si ng sek le...
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
haha
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
wah si sek gai kim jio
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
sek liao gia khe phoo
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
phoo liao pi goreng pisang
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
guah khao chia sek, lai poi peh sek
i wish i wish i wish... says:
lai poing peh sek?? hm si ng sek??? ga chiam gai ng lar...
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
wah!!
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
ur vocab too cheem alr "ga chiam"
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
wat's that mean?
i wish i wish i wish... says:
i am saying it's ga chiam -- lighter. haha...
Vorlacks - Gone Running... says:
ohhhh

This was when I realised I've met my match... Her Teochew was more powerful than mine!!

I must talk to her more and boost my command of the dialect. Anyway, it was a really fun session.

Now the challenge. Anyone wanna post comments, try to do it in Teochew. Or watever dialect you know.

Teochew mai tah, buay hiao!!

Sshhhh....

Hmm... its been pretty quiet around here hasn't it?

Well here's the reason why...

Yep its that time of the sem again.

Time to put on my armour of books and notes.
Time to sharpen my weapons of pencils and rulers.
Time to concoct my magical potions of correction fluid.
TIME to do battle with the E-monster!!

Well, two battles have been fought this sem and I must say I'm a little battle-weary and tired.

After 15 (6 + 4 + 2 + 3) years of battling this dreaded monster, I'm really glad that the end is in sight.

15 years has left me really jaded and there is a need to constantly remind myself what all this fighting is for.

Anyway, if all goes well, I have another battle this sem and two final battles the next. Then I can safely stow away my weapons and armour and take a break from all it all.

But...


If I'd learnt anything from HRM class, it is that the respite will only be temporary.

Before long, I would have to don my armour and charge headlong into battle again. I only hope that this time it will be with a greater sense of purpose.


BTW, thanks to Syrix for the photo. ;)

Tag! You're IT!!

Kena tagged by my bro Hucks...

Well since I'm in no mood to get any work done (still shell-shocked from the HRM paper), I might as well respond to the tag.

Ten things I am grateful for today.

• Family
• Close friends (y'all know who you are)
• To be alive and well
• Life is pretty ok (sort of)
• Watching a storm without getting wet
• That I can go for a run later (maybe...)
• To have had lunch
• without worrying if I can afford dinner
• Being able to write this
• That you are reading this

Ok... so I cheated a little. But yeah there's probably lots more that I'm grateful for. Just that I'm in no mental state to list them here.

Maybe another time. Remind me to write about them.

Or if I see you, remind me to talk about it. Would make for great discussion I'm sure.

Now to tag someone else. Ok if you read this, you're IT!!

Especially if your blog appears in the side column!! You're double IT!! (Whatever that means... I'm shell-shocked remember...)

Ketchup Warriors Go Live!!

Woot!! Ketchup Wars is up and running!! Today it was finally put to the test during our project presentation.

Well for those who don't know wat Ketchup Wars is all about... here's a screenshot.

Basically, its a real-time multiplayer shooting game that we developed for our project. Up to four players taking part in madcap ketchup shooting fun!

Gameplay is simple. You are a ketchup bottle. Kill other ketchup bottles and avoid getting hit!

Most number of kills makes you the ULTIMATE KETCHUP WARRIOR!!

Anyway the game was surprisingly more entertaining than I expected it to be. With four hysterical guys lobbing virtual globs of ketchup at each other... the result can only be chaotic fun.

Check out the video of Ketchup Warriors in action. It was a little more subdued cos we were in the project demostration lab and couldn't create a ruckus.

Normal gaming sessions were much more animated with much shouting, screaming and the occasional swearing (ok more than occasional).

The ppl who brought you Ketchup Wars...

From Left: Stanley, Kok Choong (back to camera), E Hunt.

Ppl not in this picture are Zijia and Jerry (aka Syrix).

Hmm... I wonder if it can be further developed... If I have time...

Ah Poh's Birthday

Celebrated Ah Poh's bdae at EA level 2 today.

Here are some snapshots. Enjoy.

The Main Man!

Everyone. Almost... Some camera-shy ppl hiding away.

The cake.

Geh liao (Extra ingredients!).

We have 360 degrees of cake, we need to cut 14 slices.
We have to measure 25.71428 degrees. Where's my protractor?

Aiyah, use agar-ation lah. Protractor, tsk tsk... Engineers...

The WRONG way to eat cake.

The RIGHT way to eat cake. Yum!

Eeww... That looks like... erm...

Happy Birthday bro!! Have a great year ahead!

Btw videos can be viewed here. Cake Cutting and Cake Smearing.