New PC, new Windows and how things suck

Got my new PC at the office.

My new PC at the office.

Yup, they didn't waste time replacing the one I was happily using. Microsoft is forcing everyone to "upgrade" to Windows 7 by not issuing anymore of my beloved Windows XP. Of course, the Windows Office has now been "upgraded" to 2007 from the 2003. It's more of "updreaded" for me.

The only pros are I got a bigger screen similar to the one I'm using at home which is 1280x1024 pixels which is the comfortable size for office work and day-to-day tasks and the Memories are higher. Thank God they didn't change the monitor to the ugly 1399x768 pixels one. I don't understand this craze for wide screens. Day to day documents and office work need you to look faster at the pages from top to bottom not from side-to-side. These manufacturers need to produce computer monitors in equal quantities for both wide screens and regular office viewing. It's not like you watch HD wide screen movies EVERYDAY on your PC.

Remember when I told you about the I.S. people disabling the wallpaper change feature?
I rebelled by making full use of the Windows 7 slide-show Gadget with pictures of cute rock stars....ha....ha...!

They still allow us to make remote connection and at the moment they forgot to disable the "Display background" function so my Warren pic is safe. Still a bit sad though as I didn't get to purchase this beautiful picture of him.

If they disable everything, then I will just resort to the old-fashioned way of printing their pictures (with the office colour laser printer of course!) and stick each of them to my desk calendar. I will not be defeated in this battle!

Big Fish Moment with Pizza Hut....!

It was one of those days when I actually had the time to check my Gmail and saw a message from Nuffnang about this new "fish pizza" from Pizza Hut. I was like....hmm.....fish pizza? Frankly, I was skeptical as I never felt that fish and pizza really could go together. So, I got curious about this one. How would Pizza Hut pull off this one.....for me?

On a visit to Pizza Hut website, I found out that the fish they're using is called Alaskan Pollock. OK. I didn't know how this fish actually looked like but I was sure not like our "cencaru" or "kembung"..... xD

Oh, fishy! Fishy! Fishy!
OK people. This is NOT how Alaskan Pollock look like xD

Like most edible fish, they have grey skin. However, these are their colours after Pizza Hut serve them for us :-)

I was hoping to get the dining experience at a Pizza Hut restaurant but me being the working girl that I am, I could only leave my office at 8pm. So, dine-in was out of the question. For this working girl, take-away or delivery was the only answer.

The girl taking the order was friendly and told me that the take-away set was different from the dine-in set. Oh, really? There was no set for a single person. Well, fine by me as most of my family were not home. Only the little nephews and their mum and my brother. So, a regular size pizza was perfectly ok. Guess what, I was also told that by the girl at the counter that only regular size was available as the other sizes were completely SOLD OUT. So, that alone basically made the choice for me.

Upon opening the packaging, I fell in love with the set ♥
The Fish King Pizza on the left and the BBQ Chicken on the right there!

The overall take-away set of the regular Fish King Pizza. The Fish King Pizza, the BBQ Chickens, the coleslaw and two cans of Pepsi.

The BBQ Chickens were recommended by the girl taking the order and I thank her for that. They were delicious :-)

I just HAVE to give kudos to whoever invented the "Hot Pouch" as my chickens arrived home hot and crispy.
Hey, you can even "top" your pizza even more ;-)

I was initially worried the heat from the chicken would cause "condensation" in the pouch and make my chickens soggy. I had an experience of Pizza Hut Chilli Chickens delivery before. For that recipe, a little moisture is fine. How about this recipe? No worry people. Your BBQ chickens would be fine in that Hot Pouch.

So, how about the Fish King Pizza?

Here it is!
This is regular size. Divided into 6 with a fish stick for each portion. Nobody will be left out. There are also scatters of cut crab sticks, capsicum (pepper), onion slices and sweet pineapple chunks.....yummy!

Let's have a closer look, shall we?
See, I told ya. The colours of the fish are just what I told you at the beginning of this post.

You can see the crispy skin of the fish sticks, the little chunks of crab sticks, pineapple and red capsicum (pepper).
The most distinct feature of this pizza is it doesn't have the tomato sauce which is one of the 3 most prominent ingredients of a basic pizza i.e the base, the sauce and the cheesy top. This actually suits the Fish King Pizza in terms of taste.

This is how I would say about it in terms of taste. It was probably an idea of combining Italian, Hawaiian and Scandinavian. The Italian part is the pizza itself. The Hawaiian is the pineapple chunks. The Scandinavian is the fish itself being paired with what tasted like mayonnaise/tartar sauce to me. That's the taste of the "sauce" used to replace the Italian pizza tomato sauce for the Fish King. Not a trace of oregano in this pizza which is great for me. Somehow oregano as its taste and aroma always remind me of our "daun sireh". I wonder if we can actually replace oregano with finely chopped daun sireh xD. The irony is in these day and age, the imported oregano is more easily available to us than "daun sireh"!

The fish sticks are nicely "flaky". They're real fish fillets as finger-food cuts. You can determine the size by comparing to my hand there (a woman's hand).

I had reservations about "fish sticks" at first as you know how fish sticks from supermarkets are. No worry people. The fish sticks were all fish with delicious crispy coating.

I was surprised as I wouldn't call myself a pizza person much and I was a tough one to please here. I was skeptical about it at first. Pizza Hut might have won me over with this one. I'm very specific about what I want in a pizza. It has to be Hawaiian with the pineapple chunks. Western food has always been a bit too rich and heavy for my Asian taste. To me the tangy sweetness of pineapple balances out the richness of the cheese. Replacing the oregano tomato sauce with the mayo/tartar-like sauce is a good decision. Since the fish sticks have this crispy coating, the best direction to go in terms of flavour has got to be the "fish and chips" way. The sweet and sour mayo is the better pairing for the fish. Traditional oregano tomato sauce would kill the taste of the fish.

Look, the missing slices all went to my tummy :-)
If it wasn't for my thoughts on my nephews, their mother and my brother, I would have finished 3/4 of it in one sitting.

Even as I'm typing this, I keep thinking of how the Fish King Pizza tasted. Really good....yummy. This is the first time in my lifetime experience in pizza-eating that I can actually eat more than half of a regular size pizza. Normally, I have problems finishing two slices. Not because it doesn't taste good but because the richness is a little heavy for my Asian taste buds which had been brought up on rice, vegetables, noodles, chicken and fish. Cheese and cream were out of my reach at the time.

My verdict. This one's a winner. This is no lip service as I once gave a bad review for another dish Pizza Hut promoted on this blog. The Fish King Pizza is worth my hard-earned money. Balanced taste. Sweet, sour, savoury in one. Not too rich yet not light or bland. The crispy texture of the fish sticks' coating gives the pizza a crunch factor too. Hey, we're Malaysians. Our crispy fried food is part of our gastronomic life :-)

Go people. Sink or swim. The Fish King is waiting ;-)

Rock & Roll Tales In My Wish List of Books to Read

I spent my weekends earlier this month browsing through a series of book titles on Amazon.

As well documented here on this blog, I have a deep liking of rock and roll stories. Since I was a wee kid, I have always loved hearing stories about rock stars, their ups and downs, switching bands, who fired who, the sad drug abuse stories etc.

Ever since I heard an interview with Bobby Blotzer of Ratt on YouTube that he had a book coming, I planted a wish in my mind to get my hands on it when money permits.


The following are the rock n roll books on my reading Wish List this year:





1. Tales of a Ratt by Bobby Blotzer

The LA bands always have the most interesting stories to tell. These men are the reason why the 80s was dubbed the "decade of decadence". Bobby is the drummer for one of the legendary LA bands RATT.

Saw the run-through on Amazon where the names of other bands/artists mentioned in the book are listed. Nearly all the big who's who of the time were there but what attracted my eyes was the name Queensryche. A-ha! Interesting. Especially knowing that Ratt dumped Queensryche from the opening slot back in the 80s. It was QR's Rage for Order era. Honestly, I do feel that they were a mismatch. Musically, QR could easily upstage Ratt. Even though Ratt did have some fine musicians in it but QR were far more cohesive as a unit. Not to mention far more innovative musically. With a top notch vocalist who was at his prime. The difference was like day and night. So, I would love to know what Bobby has to say about them.

Sadly, the limited edition personally autographed book will not be available to me because it's only available from Bobby's website and they don't ship to my country ......hwaaaahh!!!!


2. Confessions of a Replacement Rock Star by Stacey Blades

Frankly, I did not know who Stacey Blades was before I went through the synopsis of the book. Oh, so he's in LA Guns replacing Tracii Guns. It's confusing enough for me to know that there are currently two bands using the name. How is that legally possible is beyond my technical knowledge.

However, as soon as I read some excerpts from it, I realized that this one is no typical rock & roll story but more about a man searching for his identity. He began with his family background. How he was adopted as a baby and still not knowing who his real parents are. Then about growing up in Canada before making his move to the USA finally landing the the job of a guitarist in LA Guns replacing Tracii. Anyone who knew the band from their most successful lineup (Tracii, Phil, Kelly, Mick, Steve) would know that Tracii is synonymous with LA Guns. Hence, the "replacement rock star". So, even finally being in a band he liked when he was younger still doesn't give him a sense of real identity.

It's hard for me not to empathize with Stacey after reading that. I feel like I want to extend my hand to offer my friendship to him and be there when he needs a friend to talk to. I'd love to read the whole story.



3. The Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx

I'm not really a Motley Crue fan but I have TWO reasons to want this in my collection. First, I want to know how terrible the effect of heroin on first-hand account by a real heroin addict. Second, I like the artwork. I think it's amazing. The clashing black and red splashing across pages. Even if I may not be able to fully understand the world of drug addiction, I certainly can understand how the artwork had been designed in such a manner to help tell the tragic story through visual means.


So, there you go. Yes, among my collection of old clippings, tour books and magazines in languages I don't speak (Japanese, German, Dutch) I still have the common sense to at least get something I can actually read :-)

When they're replacing Chris DeGarmo and Warren DeMartini with Bill Gates......

When I talked about how bad it would be for me if I were forced to use the standard Windows background in my post about being stuck to a wallpaper here, I never thought it would be this quick. I knew it would come into reinforcement someday but I was imagining it to be next year the earliest.

Guess what? I was just informed by the Management today that the computer people are replacing my PC soon. I was shocked. What? It's been barely a year on my desk and now they're getting rid of it. With the ability to change our wallpaper being blocked, I will, like it or not, have to make do with the standard Windows background whatever that is that the Computer people set the new PC to.

Apparently, they're "upgrading" us all to Windows 7. I am still not a fan of Windows 7. I will have to get used to it no matter what. To me, it makes making the simplest task on Windows XP go a few steps further. I don't see where the simplification is. Maybe Bill Gates uses a dictionary from another planet.

Oh, they also will stop the remote connection to a mini server that we're doing now. It means that both my current wallpapers of Chris DeGarmo and Warren Demartini circa 1987-1988 will get deleted. This is really sad.

So, this means "Good bye Chris and good bye Warren"? Hwaaahhhh!!!!


*Update

Btw, I failed to secure this picture as someone else snapped it up. Oh, no! Hwaahhhh!!!

Yup....I missed Tokio Hotel first concert in Malaysia

That is so right. After all my blog posts about this band and even a blog Tag for them here plus the money spent on imported CDs and DVDs, I did not go to Tokio Hotel's first Malaysian concert on 1st May 2010 which was free, btw. What an irony. I really am nuts, huh?

I don't know why I was somehow unenthusiastic about their trip here. Not only my workplace is a mess but my finances aren't in the best situation at the moment. So, it was a choice of mine not to find a way to go see the boys. My hardened ego failed to stop me from feeling quite depressed though.

It started when my sister asked me to drive her over to the central bus station. As I was driving, a Tokio Hotel song called Hilf Mir Fliegen came on my MP3 player. That's one of my absolute favourite TH song as the lyrics speak to me.

On hearing the song, my sis had a huge grin on her face and told me that she was actually going to the capital city to watch TH live. I was shocked but calm. What?! Apparently, a friend of hers who's a TH fanatic won a bunch of tickets to the show and invited her friends to go. I said to my sis about her not telling me about going. Her reply was, her friend just told her the night before.

So, I dropped her off at the station and took my nephews to enjoy some chicken rice somewhere away. Trying to take my mind off it. This really sucked. Not only I am not able to go catch Deep Purple because no hotel room is available on the dates concerned. Now, my sis got to watch TH for free courtesy of her friend.

I struggled a bit to be matured about it. Yes, I survived the little depression by going on the net browsing through Amazon for rock n roll books I am planning to buy.

Oh, Hilf Mir Fliegen. I told you the lyrics speak to me. Help Me Fly.......


Come and help me fly

Lend me your wings

I'd trade them for the world

Against all that's stopping me

I'd trade them tonight

Against all that I have

That late noon, my sis texted me saying that she and her friends actually had extra tickets. Huh?! Well, what can I say other than, it was just not written in the sky for me.