Hello Kitty buttercream cake for my niece

As my baby niece was approaching 1 year old, I was quite excited to try to make a girly cake. She has shown a lack of liking for dolls and figurines, so a Barbie cake was out.

Then, I saw this video from this Portuguese cake decorator I subscribe to on YouTube. Looked simple enough. So, I thought I'd give it a try. A Hello Kitty cake.

This pro makes it look easy!

In order to just concentrate on the cake decorating part, I decided to buy a ready-made cake from Giant supermarket with durian flavour. If the deco turned out a failure, at least the cake wouldn't.

I knew that my buttercream piping skill is a novice level at best but what I ended up with was downright abysmal xD

This was what I ended up serving for my niece's birthday.

It was my first try at using the frozen buttercream method.

Put coloured chocolate buttons to cover the bad "smoothing" on the surfaces

Oh....just look at that awfully distorted Hello Kitty.
Good thing is at least it's not as ugly as my Ben 10 cake for my nephews xD

Anyway, everybody enjoyed the small celebration. My niece got sleepy right after tasting the cake. Oh, well.

The birthday girl!

Stumbling my way to the MTV World Stage 2010

My computer tech uncle said my PC motherboard is spoilt. He added that this is normal for any "chicken-brand" component. "Chicken-brand" is the term coined by Malaysian youth for "non-high-branded items". Well, the PC had served me well. Too bad it reached its expiry date in June which is the month that I usually need extra money to renew my road tax and car insurance. I had spent hundreds on repairing my car before that.

There is ONE very big problem not having a PC. There will be an MTV World Stage Concert in July and the only way to get in is by winning the pass from MTV website. Confirmed artists so far are Katy Perry, Tokio Hotel and the Wondergirls. The catch is one must go to the page linked by MTV from the email they sent out and wait for the small JavaScript Icon to appear in the shape of this character named Junior or this Bumble Bee.

I have no choice but to resort to my light-duty Samsung N150 netbook for my Internet activities. This is where I came to a stumbling block.

1. MTV pages are c***load full of heavy graphics, JavaScript, ads and what-nots making them very slow to load.

2. The netbook screen size of ONLY 1024 x 600 pixels means one is not able to view the page in one full view at a time. You have to scroll up and down just to read everything.

3. The Junior or Bumble Bee icon is supposed to appear either at the Top or the Bottom of the page.

4. I am able to view only HALF a page at a time!

5. In order to constantly watch out for Junior or Bumble Bee, I have to keep scrolling up and down in case they appear at either Top or Bottom.

6. Since the page is darn heavy, scrolling gives slow refresh rate meaning the probability of catching Junior or Bumble Bee is double difficult.

7. Nothing I could do to speed up even after upgrading to 2Gb RAM as the processor of the Netbook is only 1.66GhZ.

8. The next PC Fair is in August.

9. The concert is on 31st July!!!!


Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If Hollywood Vampires exist, they'd look like LA Guns

I’m back down on memory lane to the late 80s. My favourite time for music.

OK, ever since I linked that LA Guns video playing the acoustic version of Ballad of Jayne, I’ve been watching a lot of their old videos on YouTube lately. Their video for Ballad of Jayne is one of my all-time favourite videos. All my siblings like that one too. How can you not like something so beautiful? Great song, pretty men in black and red roses.

Oh, I am reminded of how beautiful they all used to look like back then. In fact, to me, collectively, LA Guns classic lineup of Tracii Guns, Phil Lewis, Kelly Nickels, Mick Cripps and Steve Riley were the prettiest band ever to come out of LA. Other bands normally have 1 or 2 pretty faces but LA Guns was visually appealing in each. I mean, Phil was like a Manga vampire doll and Kelly was basically a Warren DeMartini lookalike back in the day. Mick was the one with the Johnny Depp cheekbones and pout. Steve and his piercing blue eyes. Tracii made the short floppy hair look cool in a metal band a few years before throngs of teeny boybands adopted that look to wow girls.

What I liked about them visually was their dark hair as the frame to their piercing eyes and the myriads of tattoos giving them the edgier, vampirish and more mysterious look compared to other bands at the time. No blonds for LA Guns back then. Even today, a blond in the band would stick out like a sore thumb (yes, it’s you Marty Casey). Let’s face it, blonds don’t look dangerous.

I was once so visually taken by the band that I even wrote a teen novel with 5 characters in it named after the band members with Tracii as the lead character of a troubled teen. I didn’t finish it of course because I ran out of ideas. I read out the story to a friend and she asked me “Why are the guys’ names like girls’?” Yeah, that’s another unique thing about LA Guns. The girly names. They used to have Tracii and Kelly and now there’s Stacey in there.

At the moment, I am addicted to this video. LA Guns and their song Malaria.

Heck, even the video looks good to be in the 90s and even today. No corny cheesy scenes. Just a band rocking out in raw performance.

I don’t know about other people but to my ears, this song can fit well into today’s music. In the 90s, guitar solos found no place in rock (sadly) but this song has very strong rhythm section which is the way I like it. Thumping bass lines and drums. Add to that the Egyptian-sounding guitar solo. So my taste :-)

Of course, here are the visual excuses for my "addiction" ;-)

Manga came to life......

Picture perfect

What a doll!

This was no comic book from Japan

It's Phil Lewis

Was he for real?

Yeah!

After 18 and a Life later........

I'm doing a "spring cleaning" with my bedroom at the moment. It's all messy. Too messy. For the past 2 years, I feel like I've been living in a dumpster. You can hardly see my bed! Haha!

I have moved my sister's stuff and I haven't told her yet. At least now I'm seeing the missing half of my bed again :-)

While rummaging through things and sorting out which one to throw and which one to keep, I came across a short "assignment" from my computer literacy class back when I was 18. My first year of college.

Our lecturer had asked us to type out an "introduction" of ourselves to see our proficiency in typing correctly. Me knowing how narcissistic I am when it comes to talking about myself (as far as I know, I'm the only one among my friends who blogs actively), this was the perfect assignment. Reading through it, I smiled thinking is there really any difference between me in my 30s and me in my teens.

Here is what I wrote:

"Ever since I was a little toddler, I have always considered myself as a unique kind of person. I hated doing things that many other girls seem to enjoy doing. I mean, I was once a 'tomboy' with hair shorter than my brother's and I wore shorts and pants all the time. I even hated my name S******a and I wanted something that sounded more boyish. Anyway, everyone has been calling me S****y ever since I was born, so there's nothing I could do about it. Now, after finishing my secondary school life, I have become more and more feminine. Well, sometimes I can even turn myself into a female "chauvinist" which is contrary to what I was before.

I've always been the kind of person who's very musical. No, I don't think of me as some sort of a musical virtuoso. I don't read music but my life has always been filled with music. There's a song for every event in my life. I can listen to any kind of music as long is it sounds good to my ears but my favourite kinds are heavy metal and hard rock. Needless to say, I'm very artistic. I love art whether it is drawing or painting or designing or singing or acting or dancing. I love them all.

The negative side of me? My heart and head seem to be made of stone. I'm very stubborn, rebelllious, too out-spoken, lazy and even ignorant sometimes. Gosh, all of them have put me in trouble. The good things about me is I'm very open-minded, honest, do not tell lies, forgiving and I love children. I'm also very open to any kind of criticism that people find about me as long as they talk to me in private and they're frank enough. I forgot. I'm also a forgetful person. Rather greedy and I often tend to spend my money lavishly as if I come from a wealthy family.

Finally, dear lecturer. I wish you all the best and I hope you can help me. To tell you the truth, I don't understand a single thing about what you've taught us so far."



(S******* A**** J****)

Class A14

OMG!!! I was nuts just like I am today.

So what did my lecturer write back? Just these simple notes:

"after a full stop, 2 blank spaces" and "after a comma, one blank space"

Huh?

At the time, my class was called A14. How on earth did we morph into A12, I can't remember. Man, I think I realy do need to start a Facebook account to get in touch with my old classmates and find the answer to that.

So, back to the question, did anything change with me? Not a lot. Here are they:

1. I thought I liked dancing. No. I can't dance except belly dance because I have the "armour" to do so by nature. My generously large hips.

2. No, I'm not an ignorant person. I thought I was but no. I'm sensitive to other people's feelings most of the time.

3. Forgiving? Hmm....I need to review that. I'm not forgiving. I don't think so. I have high tolerance to people and highly accepting of people's nature and idiosyncracies till they do the s**t on me.

4. Forgetful? That needs to be reworded. I forget because I don't want to remember in the first place. There is a big difference there.

5. The feminist part? After my 5th failed try at having a relationship, I have become more critical of women than men. My last relationship taught me a lot. It was my best relationship so far. The only thing he hurt me was breaking up with me as I would never be the one his mother would approve of due to our age difference. Other than that, I learned a lot about men from knowing him and the way he was fond of me. Now I know what to do should I be destined for another one. Really, men are not complicated like I thought they were.

OK. There you go. A piece of my mind when I was 18 :-)

p/s: No, I did not include any picture in my assignment.

My PC is on hiatus.....got to use Samsung N150 netbook for now

Oh pants oh pants!

I'm so angry. What is it about my siblings that everything they touch will get broken at some point? I don't really mind them using my things as long as they look after them like I do which never has been the case.

I came home on Friday, exhausted but eager to start with my old mag scanning project this weekend. Press the ON button of my PC and ...blank...nothing. No response whatsoever. It was like the touch button didn't touch the power on source at the back. Like pressing a button on an empty PC casing. What the hell was going on? It was fine that morning as I was able to transfer some files to bring to work and did my surfing and emailing the night before.

Got mybrothers to have a look and even called the little bro in the capital city. It seems like there's nothing else we can do except get help from our computer tech uncle who was not home at this time.

So, till the PC gets fixed,I have to resort to my tiny netbook which is decent enough for doing my Gmail, blogging, YouTube and normal surfing. This little machine was designed for those anyway.

However, when to comes to my other computer passion which is photo editing and graphic art, this machine is a miserable little useless gadget.


Here's why:

1. The screen size means the picture to be worked on is Lilliput size.

2. The processor of Intel Atom 1.66 Mhz and RAM1Gb on Windows 7 Starter aren't enough for a good computer art job.

3. I can't use GIMP on this netbook. It takes forever to load with 1Gb RAM. I upgraded to 2Gb RAM and mana after waiting it to load forwhat feels like 5minutes. Even after I managed to open GIMP, I have to resize the Toolbox sizes and during retouching and saving, the Toolbox went blank!

I miss my Samsung 743NX monitor and the more powerful computing that a PC can offer.



Look at the wiring just to have a decent PC experience. Those are the power source wire, the Ethernet to modem connection, the notebook cooling fan and the speakers.



On the other side are the 4-port USB extender with the wireless mouse dongle on it. The other one is my printer/scanner.



Just for the record, that's a video shot of LA Guns guitarist Stacey Blades playing the Ballad of Jayne.

Here's the video, btw. I'm not a fan much really but somehow I like watching them :-)

LA Guns acoustic version of the Ballad of Jayne with guitarist Stacey Blades.
(Somebody uploaded the video with the title wrong)

Famous Amos finally opened in Melaka.....yeah!

I got a nice surprise when I stopped by at a shopping mall on my way back home late last month. As I walked approaching a Pizza Hut outlet and an MPH bookstore, I saw a familiar stall I had mostly seen at airports or shopping malls in the Capital City.

Famous Amos cookie stand! Yeah!!

I think many chocolate chip cookie lovers know how good and delicious Famous Amos cookies are. It's the benchmark I judge ALL cookies against. Seriously.

However, that evening I decided to try something else now that Famous Amos is within easy reach. I decided on the muffins instead. Mainly because it was the cheapest set on display at less then MYR6.99 compared to MYR8.70 for 100g of cookies.

So, here are the muffins:

Famous Amos make the best cookies but the ugliest muffins. The taste is far from ugly though. I shot this picture after demolishing one muffin. xD

The flavours as I remember them are Blueberry Vanilla, Streusel Top Vanilla, Chocolate Almond and Vanilla Walnut. All jumbled in my mind but those things are there in this set.

The muffins are good. You can trust Famous Amos for great taste of anything they bake. The muffins are a bit on the tiny side which is expected and they do not place these in normal muffin cups. Rather they look like crumpled muffin cones with a blob of muffin batter accidentally dropped onto them.

I hope this cookie stand will stay for a long time unlike my beloved Cinnabon.....sob...sob... :-( Whatever happened to that franchise? Maybe they want me to fly all the way to Seattle, USA to find one.

Lunch Hour at a US Pizza outlet

My car insurance and road tax will expire within several days. So, I took one day off to renew them and thanks Heaven, everything went smoothly unlike last year. It seems like there is an insurance company that is sympathetic enough to accept my 1992 car.

Since I didn't have any breakfast, I thought of getting a brunch in one of the many fast food outlets in one of the nearby shopping malls. After much contemplating, I walked into a US Pizza outlet mainly because they displayed "WiFi Access here".

The reason I wanted a WiFi access is to debut my birthday present I bought for me, the Samsung N150 Netbook for its first public Internet experience.

Here it is! Proudly presenting my new "baby". Tiny and mega cute Samsung N150 with a matte screen which is a BIG plus for viewing at any location. No glare.

I bought it simply because it has a matte screen. I can't stand the glare type so extensively featured in most of today's laptops and netbooks in this country. It's annoying to see the light fixture on the ceiling behind you so prominently "displayed" on your monitor.

This is what I had for lunch. Hawaiian Pizza, Mushroom Soup, Iced Tea and Spicy Chicken Salad.

They have a lunch set of a Personal Pan Pizza, Mushroom Soup and a glass of Iced Tea at MYR7.95. So, I added in a plate of Spicy Chicken Salad because I saw Pineapple chunks in it in the picture. The pizza choice for the discounted lunch set is limited to 3 types only. I chose Hawaiian because I LOVE pineapples on my pizza. Sorry I don't remember the other two.

The pizza! The picture in the menu has scatterings of chicken pepperoni but I couldn't see them here. Fear not, they were buried under the cheese. Phew!

The Spicy Chicken Salad. Yum! I'm glad I chose this. Chicken cuts, Letuce, Mayo, Thousand Island and sweet Pineapple Chunks.

The chicken was cold which is the way it should be for a salad. You can't go wrong with Thousand Island either. I am glad they didn't put carbonated drink in the set as the usual practice of many fast food outlets. I don't really take carbonated drinks. Too sweet and it gives me gas, literally xD

Verdict:
US Pizza lunch hour promo is SO value-for-money. The food is pretty good too. I'm happy with my salad and the serving portion is pretty satisfactory for my tummy.

Vanilla Soymilk Cupcakes

It's been awhile since I posted any recipe here. Basically I do that to chronicle my kitchen adventure which sometimes produces disastrous results. Hey, that's why it's called adventure.

This is another of my experiment. Saw a recipe with soymilk instead of fresh cow milk. It's not vegan. It still has eggs and I had adjusted the sugar quantity a bit to suit me.

Here goes:

Vanilla Soymilk Cupcake

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup margarine or butter
2 eggs
1 tbs vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup al-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup soymilk

Method:
1. I used creaming method for this because it is the one I'm most familiar with since childhood.
2. Beat margarine/butter with sugar.
3. Add eggs one by one.
4. Add in vanilla flavour.
5. Add in salt as I find it easier to incorporate saltiness into a wet mixture.
6. Sift together flour and baking powder in another bowl.
7. Using a hand-held spatula, alternately add in the flour and the soymilk.
8. Slowly and carefully mix it all together.
(*I've always been extra cautious when using all-purpose flour as I don't want to develop the gluten)
9. Spoon the batter into paper cups.
10. Bake at 180degC or 350degF for around 15 to 20mins depending on your cup size or oven type or till a skewer in the centre comes out clean.

Note:
Since I used commersical soymilk in tetra pack, this recipe is the one of which the sugar is reduced as the commercial supermarket bought soymilk is already sweetened. The original recipe calls for 1 1/2 cup sugar which is too much for 1 1/2 cup flour for me. Maybe the original recipe doesn't use sweetened supermarket soymilk. I doubt it though. Maybe the original recipe writer has an awfully sweet tooth.

I still get those air tunnels! Why oh why?

Taste:
There is certainly something different with the taste compared to conventional recipe with cow milk. Something a little more fragrant about it. Not too rich or heavy compared to cow milk.

Look at the texture. Judging from the "wetness" of the cupcake top surface, I think they can stay moist even to the next few days.

Take a closer look.

Texture:
Mine was quite crumbly. I'm not sure whether it was because we all ate them while they were still quite hot and fragile. Normally, if left cold till the next day, the sugar would have moistened the cupcakes and they would hold themselves together better.

Appearance:
This isn't a high-domed recipe as mine turned out. They did rise a little in the middle but still easy enough to frost for those who prefer frosting a flat cupcake.

Verdict:
Decent. Moist enough. Don't know whether the moistness will last the next day as mine were finished up within 1 hour. I don't like things too sweet and this one is just right for me. I mean 1 1/2 cup sugar to 1 1/2 cup flour is overkill.

I think the secret to the success of this recipe is the quality of soymilk. I used a cheap brand and the soymilk seemed diluted. Next time, go for good quality soymilk.

Rice Crisps by Mister Potato Review :-)

Got to tell you all. I have a weakness to fried potato either in the french fries form or the crisps. Oh, who needs a diet when there are those around?

I can certainly sneak in some french fries or crisps into my eating plan via a drive-through or even a necessary stop at the petrol station :-) and say hello to an ever expanding waistline. You can also always find a packet of crisps in my mini fridge for daily nibbles. So, when Mister Potato announced a "reduced" version for guilt-free munching RICE CRISPS, I was more than curious to know. Would the taste be up to par with the real thing?

Available in 4 flavours. Original, Sour Cream n Onion, BBQ and Hot n Spicy.

First of all, I have to say that the packaging really stand out from other "crisps in upright container" on the supermarket shelves to me. Cheery colours with the dominant lime green against white background. I'm a sucker fro anything in lime green. They were also noticeably higher taller than the rest.

They even printed Extra Tall on the packaging.

So, what do I think as an eater?

Packaging look:
5-star! Lime Green sure is a winner to me. Extra tall is certainly a welcome feature :-)

Lime Green is a cheerful "sunshiny" colour :-)

Packaging "ease-of-opening" factor:
This is important to me as I normally hop into my car after buying my crisps and open the package immediately. I can't do that with this packaging though. It's so strongly sealed that I risk ripping apart the container if I continue forcing the foil top. I have to go home and use a knife to poke through and then carefully peeling it off. The good thing is, you are assured of your crisps being fresh upon opening :-)

The sealing was so strong, I almost ripped apart the container.

So, I had to do what I had to do. Poked it with a knife.


Aahh! The crisps were alright despite the bumpy ride in my car on the way home :-)

Texture:
Thicker and crunchier than potato crisps. How to say it exactly? Potato crisps are sometimes delicate to touch and they break easily. Heaven forbid that your crisps container falls to the floor while you're eating. The crisps would break into pieces. The rice crisps are sturdier and maintain the shape better. I know because I accidentally dropped mine xD

So, let's now talk about the taste....

The Original & the Sour Cream n Onion

Original:
Reminds me of tapioca crisps. Really. Yes, folks. I think about our own"kerepek ubi" everytime this enters my mouth.

Sour Cream n Onion:
I tasted this second to follow its potato equivalent and the likely Western equivalent. This one actually tastes more like potato crisps. My sister would approve this as she is a big fan of the Sour Cream n Onion flava.

The BBQ & the Hot n Spicy

BBQ Grill:
Next I tried was this. Of all the flavours, this one is actually the one with the strongest flavour. It has the spices of the BBQ sauce, salty, sweet and savoury at the same time. The colour was a little darker than the other flavours too.

Hot n Spicy:
I tried this last as this one is obviously for the Asian taste buds. It is spicy but it certainly isn't hot at all. Your little kids would be fine with this. They wouldn't complain about it being burning their tongues for sure.

Overall:
I was expecting the Hot n Spicy to be the spiciest one but as it turned out, the BBQ was the one. I'm happy with the texture and I certainly like the fact that these crisps are sturdier than their potato counterparts. Less worry about your crisps smashed to smithereens if you accidentally drop the container. Not that the rice crisps won't break at all but not as "crash-happy" as the potato :-)

Now, since these are cholestrol and trans-fat free with 20% less fat, you can be assured that these will be adorning my mini fridge looking pretty and satisfying my the guilt-free craves when I need to.

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.

How to torture like an Ancient Torture Device

Have any of you gone to any of those exhibitions of ancient torture devices? I have. TWICE. One of the items on display was a metal chair that one was supposed to be strapped buck naked onto then had the fire lit up underneath it.Since the chair's material is highly heat-conductive, you would be essentially grilled alive. Worse thing is, that chair was supposed to only torture you not kill you. In that situation though, you would be as good as dead.

That was how I felt yesterday as I was put on a hot seat. Really really hot. The highly competent people doing the Lab assessment ISO/IEC 17025 came to evaluate us. What I went through was the mental equivalent of the medieval hot seat.

As I did the recent `internal audit' on Quality Management area, I had to go through an `evaluation' by this lady who was the Lead Auditor. I will not reveal her name as she is a highly respected figure in this field in our country and overseas. It was impossible not to have admiration for this woman for her intelligence and spot-on method of getting to the roots of our problems. Man, did she put me on a grill! Yes, she grilled me. Really really grilled me!


I can't describe how humiliated I was when she asked me to explain some of the things I wrote down in my Audit notes when I couldn't answer a lot of her questions.

"What do you understand an improvement is?"
"How did you as an Auditor draw a conclusion based on this?"
"Did you check the implementation or just simply acknowledge such and such documents exist?"
"Did you get what I mean?"
"Can you see the overall picture?"
"This wasn't that long time ago. So, you should be able to remember"
"Look at this document, can you see the problem? The fundamental problem?"
"See, there is a change in the procedure. So, the policy has changed. Have you, in fact, created more ways for things to go looser?"
"By doing this, you are making things ambiguous...."
"Overall, I'm not going to sugar-coat anything, the system is very weak"
.........etc.....etc.....etc.....

Nothing was a blurry vision to me. It was just blank. Blank space. Our Quality Manager said to me not to panic. No, this was not a panicky situation. My mind just went blank. That was it. I never filled in anything into it since last year as a matter of fact. This is beyond humiliation.


These are some of the things that can be summed up on my competency (or lack thereof):

1.  I was immatured enough to write the very childish statement "Not yet" instead of "Not applicable" in my Audit notes.

2.  Apparently, I couldn't tell the difference between an "adequacy Audit" and a "compliance Audit". She said all I did was skimming on the surface without looking at the overall picture of the system.

3.  I didn't check the implementation at all. Just agreeing to everything based on paperwork. She said I was influenced by the Auditee.

4.  I relied too much on a "Yes/No" type Checksheet.

5.  What on EARTH is "anti-clockwise measurement of a Torque Wrench"? Worse is, I wrote that down in my Audit notes and didn't even bother to understand what it is.

6.  I have "inadequate understanding of the Accreditation Bodies' Policies" because my "Audit findings on the Policy series were inadequately documented".

7.  I have the "Parrot Syndrome". You can teach a parrot to recite what you say but it doesn't necessarily understand what you say. So, I was, most of the time copying what the auditees said without really understanding what their work was all about.

8.  Since everyone is unclear about identifying which areas to improve, she said improving the Internal Auditor is one area we can all work on. Why do I have this feeling that she was talking about me? I'm a weak spot in the system that needs to be strengthened, people :-(


So, below is my response:

1.  Yes, Ma'am. You are right.
2.  With everything that went on at work for the past several months, I was not at all in the mood of learning or giving my all to my job. My friends leaving, my useless management, my paltry salary increase, my family health problems. I was and still am more keen to forget everything instead.
3.  Yes, I believed everything the Auditees said to me because they are the better-trained ones.
4.  Yes, I just recorded everything simply to finish the assignment instead of delving into the core functions of the Lab.
5.  I wish I were heartless or at least separate professionalism from feeling sorry towards my friends in the Lab team.

Being a professional that she is, the lady did point out that our Group really did have selected the right persons as Internal Auditors as we are actually able to pick up problems that we see. All we need (what I need) is to polish up our (my)skill and further understand the requirements and the importance of looking at things as one overall picture.


Now I can tell you an additional reason why I went blank yesterday. I have to admit that during the Q&A session, I was there as my body only. My mind was totally somewhere else.....with a bunch of old geezers.....namely......Deep Purple!

Before going into the meeting room, I printed out some info on the upcoming Deep Purple concert at Arena of Stars, Genting Highlands on 16th May 2010. I was checking about any possibility of me going such as the available ticket and hotel room. The ticket I can afford is for seats furthest from the stage near the doors. Every hotel on that land was not available. It's useless to go to a night event there with no accommodation. This is not like the Capital City where you can simply get a cab and check into any of the many hotels available. Hotels on the highlands are limited. The only one available is the MYR1000+ per night. There is one affordable hotel available but it's at the foot of the mountains which requires you to take the Cable car. I don't know when the last Cable car leaves the centre of the highlands. Besides, this hotel costs more than the affordable ones on the highlands. It's just not worth it. It's even more not worth it now that Ritchie Blackmore, my "first love", is not in the band anymore.

So, with my mind meandering over the Purple geezers and the highlands plus my obvious "rock star obsession", I think you have a pretty clear idea of where I was. This Soldier of Fortune was speeding on the Highway Star. Before she realized, she was already grilled and was blowing it all up like Smoke on the Water.