Thanks bros

I wanna say a big THANK YOU to my bros.

These guys made today one of the best birthday celebrations I've ever had.

Ivan and Lester cooked dinner for all of us. And Justin got a really good chocolate cake.

Cooking's not an easy task and I really appreciate all the effort they put into making it an extra special dinner. Thanks you guys!!

Anyway I arrived at Ivan's house around 5. By then the preparation and cooking was already well underway.

Ivan, chef of the day, was busy frying beef when I arrived.

Lester was draining the carrots.

Lester and I tried to steal a few tricks from the master by watching.

Ivan's culinary skills are amazing. He's the "a bit of this, a little of that" kind of cook. No need for fancy measuring spoons and what nots, just plain agar-ation. And the food still turns out damn good! Must teach me a few tricks someday bro...

Here you see him agar-ing the amount of soya sauce to add to the kung pow chicken.

Anyway the whole afternoon of work resulted in a sumptuous spread for a party of 9. There was...

Kung Pow Chicken.

Steamed promfet.

Black pepper beef.

And asparagus with mushrooms and prawn.

The cutlery was even laid out restaurant style. How posh is that!!

The rest of the guests soon arrived.

Hongjiang.

Huijuan and Ah Poh.

Me and Qingwei.

Sally and Justin.

Everyone here, let the feasting begin!! Didn't take any photos as we ate, too busy. :p

After dinner we chilled out in Ivan's room and drank a bit.

Then it was time for the cake that Justin bought! Rich and chocolaty!!

Anyway it was a really nice celebration. The thing I like about having a small party like this, is that its a much more personal experience cos you get to talk to everyone.

Finally, I just wanna say thanks to everyone for turning up and making it special.

And to my bros, you guys are the best!! Here's to more good years together!!

As always, more photos can be viewed here.

Wakeboarding!!

I'm damn tired. My arms feel like lead. My legs are aching. But hell, wakeboarding is fun!!

Actually its not real wakeboarding. There was no boat, instead I was pulled along by a cable. Check it out.

Went down to the new cable ski park at ECP lagoon with E Hunt and Penguin.

The wakeboarders!! Penguin, me (with another Penguin. Confusing?) and E Hunt.

Basically you grab onto a rope, that is attached to the overhead cable, which then pulls you around the lagoon.

Initially I was falling all over the place and swallowing mouthfuls of saltwater. But soon enough I got the hang of it and was able to go half a round before falling off the board with a big splash.

Gradually, I got more comfortable on the board and was able to complete a full round. After a while decided to try out a few "stunts". Started using one hand, then tried zig-zagging. Shiok!!

But with each failed attempt at a "stunt" came a watery landing which knocked the wind out of me.

And a long swim back. I wanted to get back to the launch point as fast as I could so that I could try it again.

Was really fun and I think I will be going back there again sometime. My aim the next time I'm there would be to try the pro boards. Was using the easy board today. Its supposedly more stable for beginners.

After wakeboarding we were supposed to go for lunch, but ended up having to do a search and rescue mission for Penguin. I'm sure there's gonna be a post about it on Penguin's blog.

Anyway full photos from today can be viewed here. And the video here.

Now you're just plain crazy

If my previous post didn't convince you that I'm a pasta maniac, let me show you what I had for lunch today.

Yep pasta again. Actually it was the leftover macaroni from yesterday's lunch.

Decided to try making baked pasta.

The bottom layer was macaroni mixed with sausages. On top of that went a layer of cream of mushroom sauce. Finally topped off with a layer of parmesan and mozzarella mix.

I wanted to finish off the cheese from Christmas. Hence the mix. If not, I think a top layer of pure mozzarella would have been nicer. The parmesan was already salty and together with the sausages made the whole thing a little too salty for my liking.

But I guess it would have helped replace the salt lost from NUS-Bi in the morning. Though I did swallow quite a few mouthfuls of seawater during the swim. Maybe that's why I didn't cramp up during the run. Haha...

Back to my baked pasta.
Here's a shot of it scooped out on the plate. I think maybe I should put less sausages next time. put in 3 today. Maybe should cut it down to 2.

Here's the whole dish before I scooped out the portion on the plate.

So anyone dare to try?

Pasta Maniac

I love pasta.

In four days, I had pasta twice. Once was in Engin canteen for lunch and the other time was at Munchie Monkey for dinner.

And today, I cooked pasta again. Well partly because I wasn't really satisfied with the pasta I had at Munchi Monkey.

The pasta sauce there was a little thin and the serving size was not really satisfying. Sufficient but not satisfying. Hence I decided to have a go at making my own cream sauce pasta.

Went out at 12.30 to go get the ingredients for my pasta. Bought sausages, bottled cream sauce, mushrooms and a whole host of other snacks for the week ahead.

I started cooking around 1.30. First up, boiling water for the pasta and grilling the sausages.

Bratwurst sausages. Been wanting to eat it for quite a while now.

With the water boiled, I threw in the pasta to cook while preparing the sauce.

Sauce done, lay out the cooked pasta.

Add sausages.

And sauce.

Ready to serve.

Check out the mushrooms. They come pre-cut so I didn't have to slice them. Great for a lazy person like me.

The whole process took me 2 hours including shopping for the ingredients and other stuff. Actual cooking time was less than half an hour. Think this was the fastest meal I've ever cooked.

Anyone keen to sample and give a verdict?

Programming Blues

Before you continue reading, be forewarned, the following post contains graphic descriptions and strong language.

Parental guidance is not necessary, but if you're a kid go read another post.




Ok, now that I've covered my backside, let the cursing begin.

(@!#*&(@@!( )@)!@_))@!#(@# bloody

@!(@#)!@($@(# freaking ()(!@

***@@* FUC**ng()@@! SystemC.... *@(!*@

#)@@!@**!)@$)_($@!)(#*@!)(#*@!(

I just spent the better half of an afternoon trying to figure out why the hell my code was not working properly.

I had copied a file onto my laptop from the UNIX server. I then opened it and edited it with a text editor that was more advanced than your average Notepad.

After saving it, I uploaded it back up onto the UNIX server. That was when the problems began. I kept getting errors that even the people who designed the compiler could not identify.

Well, they told me this with a f*c*ing informative error message of "generic error, error code unknown" or some screwed up shit like that.

Anyway, my attempt to email them led me on a merry-go-round of registrations.

"You need a license." "Go get a license from your server." "Give me your email." "We love wasting your time!!" were just some of the bloody messages that I encountered in my attempt to seek an explanation to what the F was wrong.

In the end, the solution came out of the blue. E Hunt was telling me that when you open a file with text editors other than Notepad, it adds in an extra character.

ENLIGHTENMENT!! By opening the stupid file with the more advanced text editor, I had introduced an extra character that prevented things from running properly.

True enough, after copying the file over from E Hunt's account, everything worked!! Dammit!!! One fu*(@#ing character. And it wasted half a day...

Anyway, having solved the problem, things could proceed and I managed to get some work done. Finally...

I guess I shall end off this post with a picture. To the piece of code that caused me so much agony. I have this to say.

Of birthdays and buddies

Today was a pretty eventful day in school.

First of all, we celebrated Huijuan's birthday.

Haven't seen her in a long time.

Just like the other HJ. We don't have any common modules this sem. So I hardly see him.

Back to the birthday...

Quite a crowd turned up to celebrate her birthday.

The cheesecake was really good, and it was homemade.

There's the man responsible. Interesting note, Ah Liang doesn't eat cheesecake!! Kinda like Beethoven, who was deaf but wrote fantastic music.

She had her cake.

And ate it too. LOL...

In the evening, my buddy Angel came down to NUS for dinner.

She dragged "Online Games Queen" (on the right) with her.

We ate at Munchie Monkey cafe at YIH.

I had spaghetti. Not too bad, the sauce was pretty good and not too creamy. But could be a bit thicker though.

Angel had lasagne. I think the lasagne in Bizad is better than the one here.

There was also cheese sticks to share. The cheese sticks were a bit salty. Was really thirsty after dinner.

OGQ had ice cream.

After dinner I got to ride in her brand new car!! We've gotta go "kidnap" someone soon!

Dinner was a nice break from banging my head trying to squish bugs in my code. I'm really glad she came all the way down to NUS to meet up with me. Thanks buddy!! If you're reading this do give a shout-out ok. :)

Now its time to strap on the gloves, get out the pesticide and go bug hunting again!! Xiao Qiang here I come!! BEWARE!!

Btw, full set of photos can be viewed here.

What do you get...

What do you get when you have 4 singles on shoestring budgets going out on Feb 14th?

Well, you get good food, ridiculous antics, scandalous propositions and lots and lots of laughter!!

Let me start with the good food and leave the tantalising scandalous propositions to the last.

Penguin and I were a little worried that we wouldn't be able to eat at Carl's Jr when we were making our way to City Hall from school.

It seems that everytime we plan to go somewhere to eat something, we always seem to eat something different. Like kway chup becomes Hokkien mee...

Anyway, we decided that no matter what the rest said, WE WERE GOING TO EAT AT CARL'S JR. Even if it means that we will be seperated from the rest. We were going to eat at Carl's Jr!!

Long story short, we did make it to Carl's Jr at Marina Square.

As usual we followed the instructions very carefully.

And since we followed instructions, we got our food. We ordered 3 combo meals and a burger. So we had 3 sides, 3 drinks and 4 burgers.

Chilli cheese fries, waffle fries and onion rings.

4 burgers.

Weiyi claimed the burger looked like a brain cos there were 2 halves...

Penguin the mad chemist switched profession and became mad brain surgeon... Her msn nick should now read "legal drug peddler, mad chemist and mad brain surgeon". Haha....

Things got really messy by the time we were done. But I guess with a slogan like "It's gonna get messy", they probably expected it.

After dinner we went diving.

Just kidding. We walked past an aquarium display in Suntec.

Not content with just looking at the small fish, we went to the koi pond outside.

Where the fish were big, fat and plentiful.

Next up, driving.

Told you there were crazy antics.

And then it was on to more good food at Cafe Cartel.

Cakes were going at 50% off!! So we paid 4.95 for 2 cakes. Add that to the 11 bucks for dinner and the whole outing cost around 12 bucks plus each. Cheap for Feb 14th, no?

Faith calculating how much this last piece of cake costs.

Ok now for the scandalous stuff. Faith gave Weiyi a kiss!!! Check it out!!

LOL!! It was only a Hershey Kiss. Aww...

But Faith was really pleased with her punny prank. Note her gleeful smile.

Anyway it was a really fun outing. We kept laughing all the way from dinner at Carl's Jr to the MRT station while headed home.

Lots of jokes but I think the best was the "I have a 60 litre and a 20 litre bag" joke. Sorry you've got to be there to appreciate it.

After all that eating, laughing and clowning around we were tired out. So we headed home.

But I just couldn't resist taking a group shot first.