Uncle SC

I received sad news that Uncle SC passed away today.  I guess I was expecting it because he had been unwell for some time.  Over the years, he had Parkinson's Disease - without the shakes!  Then he slowly lost his ability to speak and he was using some kind of voice box.  Very strange sounds came from his throat to some box he wore around his waist.  It took a while to decipher what he was saying.

Uncle SC will be missed for his love of good food, chocolate ice-cream, great sense of humour, wry observations and great writing skills who taught me how to love a good book to read and to look at life with a sense of humour!

Grumpy Sister

Ever since we moved in October, my sister has been a really grumpy person.  Please don't let your grumpy mood to affect the dogs and cats at home.  It isn't good for their psychology to have a person in the house who scolds them when they greet you when you get home.  How would you feel if you went to greet someone and they showed you a grump face? 

If you are having a bad day at work, too bad! The dogs didn't create the bad day for you, neither did the cats.  Blame it on the other people at work who affect your mood .... don't blame us! 

Pictorial of Sewer Works II

The steam coming out from the other end in our back yard!

They were steaming something in the hole - the other end is in the picture above

Orange caterpillar tube to air dry the sewer that they cleaned

Pictorial of sewage works

They start the day when they come to the house and lay out their tarp sheets and all other protective stuff on the floor.  This is when they come ...

These guys also lay out the cones, disaster area tape and a DANGER SIGN!

Sewage works

We have moved and now we cannot set up our kitchen.  Sigh!

The Public Works Department have decided that they need to change the sewers beneath our new home.  Since last week (when we moved), I've had all these sewage engineers arounds the house coming in to open the man hole and do strange things.  They have dragged hoses in from the drain, dumped the end of the hose into the man hole, put a CCTV camera into the man hole, checked the condition of the man hold and heaven knows what else they are going to do.

I have just had 10 men in my kitchen checking out the man hole - covered it with tarpauline and canvas sheets, moved my boxes (still unpacked) and tell me: Madam, don't worry - there will be gas smell.

I have spent the time holed up in the office room with the internet and air-conditioning on.  The dogs are very happy that I am home and they get to spend time in the air-conditioned room sleeping away.

I have no idea how long more this madness will last, but it had better end soon - I am getting cabin fever from being at home!

Moving House

We moved on 10 October 2009.  It has been a hectic 2 weeks since we signed the lease on the place.  We started packing and throwing stuff out.  The recycling people didn't come to collect what was due to them, so all that stuff ended being chucked out.

Our new home is a single storey intermediate terraced house in Seletar Hills Estate.  It is totally unrenovated other that the improvements put in some um-um years ago by the owners.  There are three bedrooms, a large living room (formerly the driveway), a large dining room (formerly the living/dining room), a large kitchen at the back (formerly the back yard or garden), a bathroom and ONE TOILET (!!) - yes, we are going to manage on ONE TOILET!!

The ceilings in the dining room and centre bedroom are lovely high ones that let in light and circulate the air.  However, the light does really shine in and create a glare in the afternoon - we are thinking of how we can cut the glare without cutting off the ventilation.

The front bedroom has a new air-conditioner so it is going to be our office.  So far, two desks have gone in there together with a bookcase and a sofa - we still have to set up the room.  I managed to hang some curtains in there to cut the glare and provide some privacy from the prying eyes of the kaypoh neighbours.

Sister takes the centre room with the high ceiling because she said that she does not want to sleep with air-conditioning.  The light in there is really dim (hopeless bulb and lampshade) so I am getting a handyman friend to come change the light and the bulb.  The ceiling is so high that we cannot get to the bulb without a tall latter.  I'm not hot about heights, so we will wait for Stanley to come to the rescue.

Our bedroom is at the back with very little natural light because the owners have extended the kitchen by 10 feet into the backyard.  There is a back wall and door that cut off a lot of light and natural ventilation.  There is an aircondioner in there so we've been sleeping with that.  The doggies are happy  - they enjoy the airconditioned cool air and get to jump into bed with us without being shoved off when we complain that they are heating up the bed!!

There are sewage upgrading works going on in the estate, so we can't set up the kitchen till they do that.  In the meantime, our meals are taken in the corner coffee shop till we can figure out what to do. 

We are still muddling around, but I am sure my future postings will have more on the surroundings.  Check in some time!

Saturday

Saturday 26 September was a busy day for us - we were running around till we were really tired.  We started in the morning by decided that we should go for our annual vehicle inspection.  We also had to fill up with our bio diesel as our low fuel indicator had come on.  Then HH decided to he wanted to see a house and we also had a wedding to attend in the evening.

We headed off to do the vehicle inspection and I am pleased to say that Goo passed the whole test with a rating of 29 for the carbon emission test.  Last year, we had 13.5 but that low number was because the Goo had gone for its' regular 10,000 mark servicing and the wonderful people at Renault has cleaned out the engine.  This year, we just merrily drove up and they started the test, stressing our already low fuel by gunning the engine to test the carbon emission - SIGH!

We passed the test with no problems - so whoever out there tells us that Renault vehicles are not road worthy or reliable, please keep your comments to yourself.  Our Goo is agent maintained (engine, servicing and washing/cleaning), serviced on a regular basis (every 10,000km as required) and are owner drivers who take care not to stress the vehicle unnecessarily.  I believe that our Goo will drive in excess of 500,000 km before we have to retire it.

Then we went off to pump our bio diesel before the centre closed.  Those people at the test centre really stressed our fuel by revving the engine till we topped up 50 litres of bio diesel.  Our tank has a capacity of 52 litres so it was cutting it a little fine.

We then headed off to our usual Saturday haunt for laksa yong tau fu - if you ever visit us in Singapore, we will take you there to eat.  It's a lovely corner coffee shop that has not changed in the last 30 years or so.  There are those old fashioned stone tables - now topped to stainless steel covers - with beer umbrellas providing shelter from the heat.  Alas the stone chairs or stools are all gone - most probably from use.  We have been eating there for the past 10 years and it hasn't changed - except for a couple of replacement beer umbrellas.

HH then said we had an appointment to look at a house in Seletar Hills, so we headed off in that area to look at this intermediate single storey terraced house.  We signed the lease and that is another posting for another day. 

We then headed off to Toa Payoh to visit the cobbler - to collect my stuff and to repair a couple of pairs of shoes.  It was a long wait at Toa Payoh - I re-heeled and re-soled 2 pairs of shoes,  and collected 1 handbag sent for cleaning, 1 pair of shoes sent for cleaning, 1 handbag sent for dyeing and another pair of white shoes dyed to navy blue - I spent $250 of all that but I was really happy with the money spent.

We went home to rest for all of 30 minutes before we had to start getting dressed to attend a wedding.  We were  truly tired after that hectic day of running around in the blistering heat.  We got home from the wedding around midnight totally exhausted!

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Bread Machine

 

Sometime ago, we bought a bread making machine from Carrefour under their own label called BLUESKY.  We had previously bought a 4 place setting tabletop dishwasher that worked wonderfully so we thought nothing of buying a bread making machine from them.

Today is a public holiday.  We were home in the afternoon when I decided that I should take that bread maker out of the cupboard and make ourselves some fresh bread from a package by Prima Flour - focaccia to be precise. 

Took out the machine and went - oh no!  I had lost the instruction book.  So I started to hunt down some instructions from the internet on how to start without a book.  I had to find out the maximum capacity for the bread pan.  After measuring water and it showed a 12 cup volume, I proceeded to add the proportion of water and olive oil and the bread mix and yeast to the pan.  I was so excited - in 3 hours we would have some fresh bread to munch on!!

The only thing that would have triggered this blackout would have been a new piece of equipment - the bread maker.  HH the resident engineer switched off the darned thing, started the mains and then I started the bread maker - PLOOP!  INSTANT DARKNESS AND STILLNESS IN THE APARTMENT FROM NO POWER!! We switched to another power point - same reaction.  We sighed, looked at each other and decided to head down to Carrefour to get our exchange or refund or whatever.

 

We drove to Carrefour at Suntec City and went to the Information Counter and queued.  When I got to the head of the line, I told the lady there my story of woe - how I was making bread and it just died on me.  I even showed them my bread maker with the focaccia mix in the pan, still warm from proofing and waiting to be baked.  The ladies behind the counter were truly amazed.  They then started looking for the bar code (because there weren't anymore in stock) and the price to arrange for a refund in vouchers.  I had forgotten how much I had paid for the bread maker and when I had bought it and whether I paid by credit card or by cash.  I didn't have the receipt for the item either!!

Anyway whilst they were hunting around for the information, HH and I went to Hans (the Hainanese cafe) to eat our dinner - that is worthy of another blog! - for dinner .

We went back to the counter after dinner and the customer service lady said that they would give me back vouchers equivalent to the price of the machine ($99.90) and could I let her have 10 cents so that she could give me $100 vouchers as a refund. HH and I took the vouchers and proceeded upstairs to look for a replacement bread maker.  There weren't any in stock so we bought an induction cooker for $39.90 from Home (another Carrefour brand) - the regular price being $99.90.  So we now get a test induction cooker at a reasonable price before we make the switch away from gas and hopefully cleaner cooking.

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What's so good about buying from Carrefour???  Well, they have a one-to-one exchange for faulty appliances within one year of purchase with no questions asked. That's what I call good service with no hassle!
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That Washing Machine

Our new washing machine is a real wonder - it washes 8kg so we do less laundry per week so we use less electricity and water.  It also has a timer where we can set it to start at a certain time.  HH was trying to figure out to start it in the afternoon to harness the "heated" water from the sun, then the water heater in the machine does not have to work so hard.  Hmm ...

We haven't tried the dryer function yet because it spins at 1400 rpm so most of the stuff comes our nearly dry.  I think it can go straight to the ironing board, but I am too lazy to do any ironing these days.

OK, it was money well spent even though we went broke just to buy it!

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New Washing Machine

 

This is our new washing machine that is also a dryer.  Two weekends ago, the old washing machine just died on us - we think the motor finally burned out after 7 years.  HH and I contemplated repairing the motor, but figured it was just too much trouble and decided to buy a new one.  Our old machine was a narrow top load Elba machine that had a front load movement and washed only 5 kg of laundry with a max spin speed of 600 rpm.  This new thing is from LG, washes 8 kg and dries 4 kg and has a maximum spin speed of 1400 rpm, so our laundry comes out drier but needs to be hung out to dry.  Sometimes, we also need a dryer, so we decided to get a 2in1 machine.

We could not make up our minds on what we wanted - we spotted an advertisement by Courts for a Sanyo machine that was within our budget that was tilted so we thought we could fit that into the downstairs bathroom that was the designated laundry area.  We could not fit anything in there other than the old Elba or similar type of machine with a footprint of 40cmx60cm. 

I like the front load type of movement or ferris wheel machines as I think they wash cleaner than those top load machines.  We were limiting our choices when we went hunting.  We could look at Bosch, Panasonic,  Whirlpool, Brant, LG and Samsung in front loaders.  The awful part was that their space requirement was 60x60cm. 

The new machines on the market are totally amazing - there's air wash, silver nano wash, ion wash and we were scratching our heads on what to buy.   After walking around Best Denki and Harvey Norman, we settled on this LG that seemed relatively simple compared to those high flying machines - just wash and dry!

Poor HH had to re-arrange the whole kitchen just to fit this new machine in our home.  The cooker was moved, the free standing shelf was moved, the cupboards moved - the only thing that stayed in place was the kitchen sink!!  I couldn't too much to help him because I wasn't feeling well and spent most of Sunday in bed whilst he set himself to rr-arranging the kitchen.

The machine was delivered yesterday and since then, we have been catching up with our laundry.  The good thing is that we can wash more - the bad thing?  We are running out of space to hang the enlarged load :p

Kacang Botol Salad

I had this hankering to eat kacang botol - I saw it in the supermarket but didn't do anything about it and dreamed of it for 2 nights before I headed out to the supermarket to buy all the ingredients.  I made my nyonya kacang botol salad of lime juice, bunga kantan, shallots, serai, chili shrimp floss, sambal blacan, sugar and kacang botol, merrily tossed around into a yummy salad.

Evidence of my greed is shown to all!  *burp*

Hungry Ghost Month

Today marks the first day of the Hungry Ghost Month where the ghouls roam the earth when they are set free from hell to create trouble - that's what I was told by some old wives years ago.

So fast forward to today and this posting - it is the start of one month of burning hell for me. The people who observe the rituals of the Hungry Ghost Month will be burning all sorts of stuff for the ghouls - usually paper money as far as I know - and also leaving food around. The area around our home will be littered with ash from the burnt offerings, there will be joss sticks stuck along the pavements, and the grass would have been damaged by these inconsiderate people.

Years ago, before the recessions started - we would find these giant joss sticks in the industrial estate waiting to be burnt. What a waste of money!

I don't have a problem with the burning if the people did it sensibly - burn in the bins provided; have fire fighting equipment should there be a disaster; place joss sticks in central zone or in one area instead of a long line scattered all over; and generally clean up after themselves.

These people leave a mess for the cleaners to deal with in the morning - just because they pay conservancy charges does not mean that they have to be inconsiderate!

Many years ago, I could see about 20 small fired within my line of sight around our estate. I called the fire brigade because it seemed like a fire hazard. The fire brigade came and DID NOTHING!!

So to those who must do something for hungry ghosts, please be considerate to those around you. Thank you!

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Rude People at the Supermarket

This evening, I went to NTUC to pick up some groceries. When I had finished, I headed off to the cashier to pay for my stuff. There was this guy in front of me and some stuff on the conveyor. The guy said that those 4 items didn't belong to him so I proceeded to put my stuff on the conveyor.
Suddenly this woman rushes up to me and says that she was ahead of me in the line and those items belonged to her. She wanted to cut my queue.
I think these people are just so bloody idiotic - just think that they can leave their stuff around, then say that they were in line.
I think the cashier was also idiotic - she asked if I minded. Of course I mind and I told her her, but she proceeded to check out that woman's stuff.
What an ass!

Green efforts

We are still on the bio diesel track - we found this place somewhere along Yio Chu Kang Road that opens till 8 pm every day so we are not so stuck for fuel by having to get out during regular office hours. To make things better, the price of the bio diesel is only 87 cents compared to $1 for the other pumps. However, it has been closed the past couple of times we went there - then on the website it says that it will re-open in September. We will be back there when it reopens because of the convenient hours.
So far, we have not experienced any "bad" things with the recycled cooking oil. We don't really feel any loss of power when we drive. No shuddering or strange noises - just smooth driving all along.
We seem to be achieving our optimum consumption of 600km per full tank of fuel - something we had achieved sometime back.
Of course the best consumption we had was 850km for a full tank of diesel when we drove at a consistent speed on the North-South Highway from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur and back. That was years ago we haven't had such good consumption since 2004.
We will know if there is any damage to our engine when we go for our 250,000km service. We had agreed that we will try bio diesel for 10,000 km.
So far, so good and I think we will continue.

Goo speedometer problems

We had some problems with our Goo speedometer - it stopped working!
We were not able to know our speed, so even if we were speeding the needle stayed down. Of course with the needle down, we could not check our mileage either. Not being able to check all these "indicators" meant that we would be off schedule with our Goo servicing. I am very pleased to let you know that the Goo is the oldest agent maintained vehicle still going back to Renault for servicing. They handle everything for me.
So I drove back to the workshop and they changed the speedometer part and we were back on track to check out our mileage and consumption.
Thanks very much to Renault's wonderful vehicle workshop for doing a great job of keeping our Goo in working condition.

Sheares Ng

This guy is to be written off because he is too cowardly to respond to me. However, he is very diplomatic and has no guts to offend his ex-boss so he will do what he can to get onto Boss' good side despite what he has done to me.
My email is up and running.
I certainly won't be recommending him to anyone for any web hosting services of any sort.
There is only one thing to be said - the Heavens have eyes to see.
All will be revealed in time to come!

Being Pissed!

This blog is for me to rant and rave in cyberspace about things that piss me - so here I go ...

For some time I've had my web hosting and email hosting with a company named D'fine Solutions Pte Ltd, run by a guy named Sheares Ng Wee Leng. Sheares used to work for a friend and I was told that he's OK to support for business so I merrily moved it over without nary a thought.

I did have some problems with the service sometimes - could not receive emails and sometimes got flooded by spam, but it wasn't anything that was unmanageable or unacceptable. Yeah, I received porn too, but a murmer to Sheares about the awful porn was resolved. Honestly, I am not hot about receiving emails about improving my performance in bed, how to satisfy my woman and be a hunk or invites to chat on porn lines or how to buy prescription drugs online. Not exactly my cup of tea!

Then last year in 2008, Sheares spent a lot of time in Taiwan and the service standards went to the longkang - literally down the drain. HH spoke with Sheares about it and the excuse was always the Microsoft Outlook problem. We were having problems receiving emails - not problems sending them, so what Microsoft Outlook problem? Then it would be a case of nothing in and nothing out. Not garbage in and garbage out (GIGO) that I learnt in computer programing classes years ago!

But we have other email address with other hosts and those were not a problem so ... the problem had to be with the service.

In June 2009, HH and I took a decision that we should take our web and email hosting out to another service provider because the cost was cheaper. In these difficult times, we have to watch our pennies. We would get about the same service for about half (!) the price - YES NEARLY HALF PRICE. Not much to consider right? The price is right, the service is OK so we should switch.

HH gave Sheares notice of our intention to switch verbally. OK, that could have been a mistake but we all sit in the same office space and work together on some projects, so what's so difficult. Then about 3 weeks ago, absolute silence from Sheares. He didn't come to the office, no response to emails, sms or skype messages - ABSOLUTE SILENCE!!!

We asked for the password for the domain transfer and again SILENCE! Absolutely frustrating. We even asked Sheares to renew the domain, but he never responded. It's not as if we aren't going to pay him. He never raised an invoice for anything until suddenly in June 2009, he threw out 2 invoices. One for last year's service and another for this year's or the renewal. I paid the invoice for last year (2008) that was raised in 2009. When he asked about the renewal, I said that HH had spoken to him about it and that we were moving it out.

Wah - such rudeness and a sulky face. Then Sheares went MISSING IN ACTION. No response to any form of decent communication. This morning I tried to call Sheares - he kept switching me off till I was so pissed that I posted a nasty message on his Facebook wall. After I sent him a Skype mesage, he said that he does not do domain renewals. What sort of half baked service does he provide - you can check out his website http://www.dfine-solutions.com/ and it does show that he does do renewals!!

He got slammed again on his bad service and I threatened him with legal action for damages for lost emails. Then finally at around 4 pm today, he sent an email to HH, presumably from his Technical Support that domain renewals can be done from his website.

Some time back, Sheares told HH that if our clients do not take up his web services after we have done the software development and web design for them, he will not be supporting them. So in the first year, we can place the service with Sheares - but when he messes up then the client gets really angry and moves their service out? Sheares will not handle the work and their websites will all crash!! This is bad service!!

Hey, if this is how he treats customers - how could he ask me to bundle my corporate secretarial services with his hosting services?? I would end up fielding questions from my irate clients when they cannot receive their emails or their websites are down.

Sigh, I am tired of this nonsense. I will now take my business to unknown entities where I can shout at them for service lapses. This is how I can yell at Singtel for crappy telephone service standards and tell them that their CEO does not deserve her S$7million salary. :p

Please do not go to a company called D'Fine Solutions for your web or email hosting - you will be stone walled by the person who cannot grow a business because he will remain a one man show.

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More recycling efforts

I still have this recycle bug in me! Last week, on 4th July (Happy Independance Day USA!), we started pumping BIODIESEL into our Goo. I had been reading articles about biodiesel but often wondered where to find the stuff in Singapore. Finally we struck "green" gold, so to speak. There was an article on biodiesel and where to find the stuff.

We were 1/4 tank down on in our fuel and did the slow transfer over - like we do for dog food for our doggies. We topped up with 21 litres of biodiesel and merrily went on our way feeling really smug with ourselves.

That night, V and I went to the supermarket to get our groceries. On the way back, I kept on insisting that I smelt food in the Goo. I was asking - what food did you buy? Do we have food in the back? NO COOKED FOOD IN THE BACK OF THE GOO!!!

Whilst I was reading up on biodiesel, the source of the stuff etc, I did read that biodiesel was made from recycled cooking oil. Ah - that was the source of my cooked food smell at the back of the Goo - fried chicken, french fries, yew char kuay, vadai and whatever else that is fried food!! Maybe we are getting biodiesel from cooking oil from Kentucky Fried Chicken and MacDonalds and all the shops that deep fry stuff so I am getting strange aromas all around me.

So far, we have not experienced any loss of performance or any strange sounds of any sort in our Goo. We cannot tell you any the mileage or consumption so far because we had a problem with the speedometer in the Goo. Sigh! So much for my green efforts so far, but we are going to keep going at it!

Looks like we are set to continue with biodiesel since it seems to be cheaper than the regular stuff and it is a green option.

For more information of biodiesel and how to convert, go to http://www.biodiesel.org/resources/faqs/ and you can see that we are trying to go GREEN!

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More recycling

I am so pleased to say that the recycling company came to take away our bag of stuff of recycles - full of cardboard, a chipped porcelain mug, some cleaned out tins, some glass jars, a couple of large plastic bottles and an assortment of paper from the unsolicited mail that we get in our letterbox.

I guess that phonecall worked and they are now more vigilant in their collection. We will wait and see how long they can keep this going.

Recycling IV

Yah - this bee is still in my bonnet about recycling!

Years ago, when I was a student in England - we recycled everything where possible. I guess this is where I caught the bug - plus the Malaysia kedekut genes in my blood.

The rubbish collection in our area was done once a week - on Mondays. For the whole week you would wonder what we did with all the rubbish we generated. Please note - I am English in my vocabulary. I use the work RUBBISH not GARBAGE - HH is American in his vocabulary!!

Our food waste would be "gobbled" by a food gobber in the kitchen. We would put in all the bones and other strange food waste that we could not send to the compost bin.

The compost bin would be the recipient of our vegetable and fruit peeling and the egg shells, ground coffee, tea leaves, grass and what have you that could go into the compost bin. This wonderful bin would then make wonderful humus for us to use in our garden after some time tumbling around in a warm area.

There was a glass bank down the road in the large carpark - we would sort all our glass into clear, green and brown piles. Then take a walk to the glass bank and have great fun chucking in the bottles and hear the glass shattering. Quite good for taking our your anger on someone! :D

Newspapers would go paper bank for recycling as well.

We didn't have to recycle milk cartons because we had milk delivery - we left the glass bottles outside on our doorstep and the milkman exchanges it with another bottle of milk.

All those TetraPak containers could be recycled, so we would rinse these out and put them in a pile for recycling as well. Same for the cardboard boxes. There wasn't too much styrofoam to recycle because it wasn't much in use.

In fact I have made it a policy not to cart rubbish home to throw if I can help it these days in Singapore - I will say NO to boxes for shoes if necessary, throw out the uncessary packaging material before I bring it home.

Every week, we would have something for recycling and I guess the bug stayed!

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Recycle III

I have this bee in my bonnet about recycling lately so I figured I might as well get the whole thing out of my system.

In our HDB estate, the recycle company comes around every two weeks on Mondays. So Monday 1 June was the designated recycle day.

In the two week lag time, I collect all our disposed plastics, glass, metals and cans, all sorts of paper, styrofoam and put these into our recycling bag The recycling bag also says that they will collect old clothes, toys, books and electrical items.

So I have put all these items aside for the recycling company in the so many years that they have been collecting such stuff in our estate. We would collect the newspapers for the recycling company instead of waiting for the karung guni man who comes around to BUY the papers from us.

Anyway, this is the thing that has made me really cross with our recycling company - they didn't come around on the designated day a couple of times and our bags were left along the corridor to wait for them. They did this in May when they came around only once.

So this time I was so cross with them that I called them on Tuesday to demand an explanation for their tardiness in following the schedule. The girl who answered the phone had the cheek to say that I put out the bag too late after the guy had come around. I informed me that the bag would be put out on Sunday night, just in case we forget on Monday morning before 8 am when we leave for the office.

Anyway, if the guy had come around he would have left another bag for the next collection. There was no bag!

Anyway after my feedback on collection, they came and collected the bag yesterday. I will be monitoring their activities and will keep you updated.

Great! Now that I've got this off my chest I will have my tiramisu dessert as a reward.

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Recycling II

I just became the latest victim of electronic waste through no fault of mine. I am well known for my "kedekut" ways or mad recycling efforts, so this is really disappointing for me.

My VOIP service provider announced that it would be terminating services from 31 May 2009. When I subscribed to their service, the company provided me with an ATA (Analog Telephone Adaptor) box so that I would be able to use a regular old fashioned analog phone over the internet connection.

Now that this service has been terminated, I am stuck with an ATA box that is in perfectly good working condition but cannot be used. So why is this considered electronic waste? THE BOX IS LOCKED by the service provider.

I called a couple of service providers to ask about their service and asked it I could reuse the box. I get the same answer - Sorry, madam. You are not able to reuse your ATA box, it is locked by the original service provider. You will have to buy a new one from us or pay us $xx for the use of software internet phone.

Sigh! What a bloody waste!

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Recycling

There has been talk a lot these days about being GREEN and recycling and not wasting stuff. So these are my experiences recently about being a greenie in Singapore.

Some time back last year, there was this huge campaign to use less plastic bags. When I first came back from England, people thought I was nutters because I would have my own bag to carry my shopping. Actually it was a large bag where I dumped my handbag and my umbrella and my newspapers. Whenever I bought something, I would decline the plastic bag and then dump my shopping into my large carrier and happily went along my way.

Then, to my horror I realised that I didn't have plastic bags for throwing out rubbish! I remember asking a girlfried for her extra plastic bags because I really didn't have any at home. What a laugh she had.

There was a lull in this recycle effort for some time althought there would be some occasional call for the people to reduce, reuse and recycle.

Ah, but the Singaporeans have not met the great Malaysian recyclers!

In the office, I am known for my "kedekut" or stingy recycle ways. When we moved to this new office, I am so proud to say that everything has been recycled where possible with the exception of the partitions, airconditioners and lights - no need to say about the electrical wiring because all these items we didn't have in our old office. Boss did say something about it making the office look like really poor, but I told him that I am the great recycler and I don't really care about that rich image.

So, we recycled everything! The partitions that lost their connector posts would be sandwiched between tables. Tables that could not stand properly would have L posts drilled to the tops and legs for stability. Two printers with two non functioning duplex units had been canibalised into one good working duplex with the other parts given to the repair shop for spares. Files that had P&C information that was no longer needed were shredded and the bits sent for paper recycling. No need to say about the reverse side of the paper right? The file dividers were then put aside for reuse. Of course the files were put aside for future use. The totally rusty spring files with split or torn edges were also sent for recycling.

I use re-filled toners for all the printers in the office from a very reliable compatible toner refill company. BTW, I keep all these cartridges with the boxes and the packaging for him too! All pastic, paper, glass and metal will be sent to the recycle bins where possible.
In the office, we will use item until it is totally dead or cannot be used anymore. If the item can be salvaged or repaired, we will have it repaired to prolong its life for use until there is a point of no repair or return.

According to the building management, our office is one of the greatest recyclers!

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Dog-ma

I recently because god-mother (or kai-ma) to a cairn terrier puppy - hence the nickname DOG-MA :p

This cutie pie was bought by Danny and came home to live with him on 25 April 2009 and was named LUCKY after many tries at a name that Danny's mother could say. They speak Teochew at home. The names I suggested were Ahti (little brother) or Nokia (small kid) but these were rejected. I figured an easy name would be great, but Danny had other ideas and finally LUCKY because mother would say it.

Lucky came about in a strange way and I am glad. One day - out of the blue - Danny called and said that he was looking for a puppy. For years, Danny hankered after a doggie. He was very happy to see Junior. But the doggie idea was totally out of the question because his brother BT was dead set again a dog. Actually I think BT is afraid of dogs. So I was totally stumped with Danny called and said it was now OK to get a dog at home.

Danny wanted a golden retriever because he likes large dogs - Junior is his idea of an ideal dog. BUT Danny has no idea how much training effort we have put into Junior. However Danny was practical about his choice of dog - it had to be small to fit into the requirements of HDB rules and regulations, hypo-allergenic, shed free and I guess easy to manage. A long list of requirements.

Anyway, we set off for a friend's pet farm and there was this cutie Cairn Terrier and I fell in love with it - actually I lusted over it and wanted it. My dear friend at the pet farm said: No more dogs for you - too many at home! BTW we only have a goldie (Junior) who lives illegally in an HDB flat and a westie (Torrent) who is totally legal and 3 cats.

OK, so since I didn't get this Cairn Terrier - Danny took him home and I became to DOG-MA!

Doggie benefits and love with no responsibility of pee and poo - NOT A BAD DEAL I WOULD SAY!!

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Manja

What's this about some women who feel that they must dress provocatively and act all hapless and helpless to achieve their wants and desires??

There is this lady I know, no names mentioned, who is mutton dressed as lamb. She is already 40+ but she acts in this coltish, skittish, manja type manner. She is also always dressed in these skin tight, skin baring clothes that make her look cheap and sluttish.

To make things worse, she is short and insists on wearing extremely high heels to totter around precariously.

Her manner of speaking is also weird - she also tries to speak in this so-called provocative giggly manner where she tells you something then breaks out in giggles like it is so funny. She also has this way of dragging her words or draggy manner of articulating her speech, depending on how you look at it. There is only one way to describe it - manja manner.

So this would be a caricature of her in your mind - someone short who wears high heels, skin tight and skin baring clothes, and acts all manja around men. I guess you could say BETTY BOOP!

Someone in our office building mentioned to me that he thought she looked like a prostitute - his words, not mine. By her own admission, she said that there are times when she has been stopped going to her hotel room when she was overseas on business because the management thought her to be an undesireable guest.

Anyway, I guess you could say that she is eye candy for the men but I think she could have a better image of herself.

Enough said!

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Bimbo stuff on television

There are 2 shows making their rounds on Singapore TV at the moment - The S Factor and Singtel Grid Girls. Last year, I posted a blog on Singtel Grid Girls and stated that the show portrayed women in bad light - as bimbos or sarong party girls whose whole idea in life is to snag themselve some ang=moh guy.

This year, I will state the same the same thing - the sponsors who agreed to fund these shows should have better things to do with their money.

In "The S Factor" the girls on show seem totally brainless from the trailers that have been showing. One girl said something like she has had 7 serious boyfriends, then the screen freezes and shows the expressions of these 2 women interviewing her.

Excuse me - I am not very keen to hear about how many serious boyfriends, or what part of your body you like the best, or your opinion that is so "brainless or senseless"!

I don't think I am particularly bitchy or nasty, but these 2 shows really portray women in bad light.

The girls don't do much to portray themselves in good light - they speak badly with the typical Singaporean accent Singlish, they don't pronounce words properly, they don't think of their answers or they speak with some stupid fake accent that does them no credit.

Sigh! - please take such horrible shows off the air. I am sure the money is better spent on other shows that put women in better light.

I rest my case!

New Phone

I bought a new phone a month ago - Samsung Pixon in standard black.

When I started hunting for a phone, HH told me to just fixate my search on a feature that was very important to me. These days, all phones come with the usual features - phone calls, SMS, MMS, emails, picture, video, games, radio and a whole lot of all-in-one features that will make the kitchen sink seem obsolete!

So I only have one requirement - the SMS fonts must get bigger! There is only one brand on the market that has this feature: SAMSUNG!!

So I headed off to the M1 shop to get my new phone based on that one requirement.

So why the PIXON instead of the cheaper F480 or the more expensive OMNIA - considering that all are touch screen phones?

Simple - PIXON has the loudest ring tone besides the larger font capability.

M1 gave me a $300 phone upgrade voucher, so the price diff between the three phones was something like $50 to $100 depending on which phone I took.

The OMNIA was some Windows mobile phone with Wifi, but the FONTS DON'T GET BIGGER, so that ruled itself out.

The F480 was pretty much the same as the PIXON (java phones), but the ring tones were softer and it has only a 5 megapixel camera. Since I already have a 5 megapixel Samsung G800 in good working order; I would be getting something with the same specs with a touch screen phone. The price difference for the camera size? $50 to me; so being the kiasu person, I took the biggest, bestest phone to suit my requirements. :p

Now I have put my data card into the PIXON and with the 8 gigabyte micro SD card, I have internet access on the move and can watch movies as well.

What more can a non-tech non geek girl as for?

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Frozen meals

Times are bad - we are trying to save $$ by eating home most nights with me cooking dinner and trying to keep the budget down to about $5 for the two of us. Alas, the best of my efforts are often stymied by what is available in the supermarkets.
My bright idea for saving money would be to buy frozen meat from the supermarket, defrost and cook. This is my BIG PROBLEM - everything that I buy frozen comes in bulk packing. To buy frozen boneless chicken legs, I need to buy 2 kg and it is impossible to separate it because it is in a large frozen lump!
Pork is not so bad because they come in 500g sizes.
We can buy some fish frozen in single pieces, but in a large bag - so I just take out what I need.
So far, the "cheapest" way of doing this would be to buy the whole salmon at $9.90/kg and freeze that into individual pieces. This means we are stuck eating salmon for weeks on end because we would are certainly not eating salmon every night!!
Of course I could cook up a large portion of 2kg chicken curry and dump it into the freezer and eat it for the next 6 months - one portion every month.
From the safe food handling process practice, we should not defrost meat then marinate it and re-freeze it.
So what am I supposed to do? Any bright ideas??
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Wedding Food

Food at weddings are generally mass produced meals - sometimes terribly expensive for what they are. In all the time that HH and I have been attending wedding dinners as a couple, I would say that the best meal was at our wedding. That's because I decided what we should eat and wasn't going to have some banquet manager tell me what was allowed in the package.

Anyway, this posting is not about our wedding lunch but about some of the wedding meals we have had over the years. So this post takes pot shots at incompetent wait staff and bad food.

There was this one dinner at Pan Pacific for P - the meal was OK but the table service was horrendous. The waiter is inept and when he brought the soup to the table, he dipped his THUMB into the soup as he placed it on the table. Oops! After that, I told him to deliver the food to the table and I would serve the table. I think he was impressed by my serving skills.

There was another dinner at Shangri-La recently - the waiter was good but the food wasn't terribly fantastic for a hotel of that stature. OK, give them some benefit of being overworked - there were just too many tables for them to attend to and it was chaotic in the ballroom as there were a couple of other functions going on around the hotel.

Also recently, we were at A's wedding dinner at Paramount Hotel in Katong. The food wasn't that great either by the standards of the groom's family. I thought it was OK - very passable for the place. The groom's uncle (a great makan kaki friend) felt that the food was not up to standard and had caustic remarks about the stuff he ate! But my galloping gourmet friend has a great cook in his mother so nothing comes up to his standards - I will feel sorry for any friend who tries to feed him - his comments can deflate a chef's ego even if they are rated 3*** by Michelin.

However the best wedding dinnner we went to recently was at Noble House at UIC Building in Shenton Way. The entire wedding dinner was vegetarian - HH and I are OK with vegetarian food if it is well done - THIS WAS EXCELLENT!!!

There was not a single piece of gluten in sight - every dish was carefully thought out and well cooked. I don't think there was any MSG either because we survived the wedding dinner without being thirsty. There were mushrooms galore but they were cooked interestingly. Aiyah! wait for the pictures to tempt you!

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Weddings

We went to a wedding yesterday at the Jurong Adventist Church - must say it was the most creatively done wedding we've attended in a long time. The decor was great with flowers every where, making the place smell heavenly.

The wedding montage of the wedding couple was brilliant! There was this video on B talking about R and how they are best friends. Then, the video went on to show how B proposed R in total darkness with these tea light candles made into the words "Marry Me". Awww - so romantic and really a good video for YouTube.

Congrats to all the kaypoh aunties who matchmade the couple and orchestrated the whole wedding event for the wedding couple.

HH has this thing about wedding - he hates them! Maybe our wedding was so awful that he does not care the repeat the process :p

Anyway, HH dislikes going to weddings because he needs to get dressed up - put on a well starched ironed shirt and proper dress shoes and sometimes a tie for the occassion as well. There there is the mush of weddings that get to the very practical engineer brain of his that he cannot process - yeah, I can understand too.

My take on weddings - get dressed up in my standard formal event "uniform" of my kebaya blouse and sarong skirt with my Ferragamo shoes and try to have fun.

Yesterday's wedding was a very elaborate affair of a church wedding where the church was packed to the brim. It was beautifully decorated. There were many grooms men and pretty flower girls scattering flowers all over the aisle.

In contrast, our wedding was pretty simple - to church then to lunch. We had 53 people attend the church wedding (including ourselves) then we headed off to the hotel for lunch. The whole lunch was over by 2:30 pm.

HH was feverishly ill - I think he had no recollection of the event other than him having this wet towel on his head to bring down his temperature!! Oh well - we have survived thus far!

Chaotic traffic!

We went to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on 24 March and returned on 25 March 2009 - yeah, a very short trip there.

This is a clip of the chaotic traffic situation there - then you can be grateful for the orderliness where you are!

Pot Luck!

I recently had an argument with some pedantic Christians in church about the word LUCK which they deem to be unholy and not in line with the teachings of the bible.

I remember a long time ago as a kid, when we had those dinners where everybody brought a pot of some food - the dinner would be called POT LUCK in accordance with the English language.

Then some people who say they are Christians then decided that the words POT LUCK were not biblical because we are not supposed to believe in luck. Then in their madness, they changed the phrase to POT BLESSED which really sounds weird.

Should they not use the words in reverse and say BLESSED POT - since we were the recipients of a blessed pot of food sent to us?

Imagine having a conversation with regular native speakers of the English language and we say: Oh yes, we are having a POT BLESS dinner tonight with some friends and you are most welcomed to come and join us.

That person would be most puzzled with the hopeless, hapless use of words.I heard this lady named Siew Lui say POT BLESS in church and the best part of this is that SL was a communications teacher in the local polytechnic. I think her communications skills are horrible!!

I think in Chinese, when we say LUCKY - we would use the words "xing yun" like when we strike the lottery but I am told there is another word "hao yun".

You can give me the shit about evolving language and how new words always appear, but POT BLESSED is really pedantic of Christians who feel that they need to change the whole syntax of structure just to make themselves holier than others!

So am I wrong to say GOOD LUCK - BREAK A LEG to someome who will be making their stage debut? That would be a blessing and a curse in the same sentence!!

Busy with work

I have been busy with work these days. My grandmother Margaret used to say: An idle mind is a devil's workshop - so since I have been busy with work, I haven't had an idle mind and the devil cannot work in this particular workshop!!

Breakfast!

This morning's breakfast was excellent in my opinion. Something simple yet so yummy - toasted cheese sandwich from the microwave.

For a couple of days, I had been feeling dizzy and miserable so this morning, I thought I should cheer my stomach on with something more substantial than the kaya toasts that I had been having at home.

Very simple - butter two slices of bread with butter. Grind some black pepper all over the buttered bread. Put two slices of cheese in between the two slices of bread - I used "President" processed cheese: one toasty slice and one sandwich slice. Put on kitchen paper.

Chuck in the microwave for 1 minute or so on medium. Flip sandwich over after 30 seconds and continue for the remaining time.

Take out and eat warm when the cheese and butter are melting.

Yummy!!

Coffee Shop Western Food place

HH and I often go around looking for good western food joints served at coffee shop prices. There are those usual places that offer very pedestrian chicken chop (no such thing as a chicken chop - but that's another story), lamb chops, fish and chips or chicken cutlet. These are usually served with cold tomato baked beans, some very plastic tasting coleslaw and greasy chips for about S$3.50 to S$5 depending on what you eat.

However we found a western food joint worthy of the calories and money spent. At Ang Mo Kio Central in a coffee shop next door to the large standalone Courts Mega Store, there is a western food joint that is really a cut above the others that we have tried.

I think it is called My Dad's Kitchen, but you really cannot miss it - it is the only western food place in the coffee shop.

So far, HH and I have only eaten the New Zealand rib-eye steaks. The first time we went there and discovered the stall, HH was wicked - he demanded to see how thick the steaks were before even considering wasting the calories.

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Duly satisfied that the chef knew what he was doing, we both had the rib-eye steaks for dinner. They come with your choice of potato (baked, smashed, wedges or chips) and veg (coleslaw or steamed veg of the day) and a choice of topping - either black pepper sauce or mushroom sauce. HH always has mushroom sauce and I have mine topless to taste the meat.

These steaks are not cheap by hawker stall standard (the rib eye is $10.50) but they are excellent. The guy also has a version of apple salad that is also good - light mayo and a scattering of walnut and raisins.

We would highly recommend this place if you are in the area.

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Valentine's Day

What is the hype about Valentine's Day?

On Saturday 14 February 2009, in The Straits Times, there was a full page article on the mating and copulation styles of animals - the black widow spider that eats her mate's head in the throws of passion to the extreme large equipment of the elephant and the practically non-existent equipment of King Kong. That's why when he climbed the Empire State Building, you didn't see his phallus!!!

My sister V said that's why King Kong climbed the building - it was a huge phallic symbol for the large ape - hmm ...

In The Sunday Times on 15 February 2009, there was an article about a man who set up a candlelight dinner by the beach for his girlfriend and how he cooked cabonara for her and how he got a friend to help with logistics.

Hey - everyday is Valentine's Day. No need for some Hallmark reminder to make it into a big thing.

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Technology Klutz

I don't think I am very good with technology - I just use what I want or need, then leave the rest unless there is a dire need to figure it out.

Here's an example of how technologically inept I am: last year my sister V complained about the rice cooker that we have in the kitchen. It was a regular old fashioned cooker that did the rice in about 20 minutes or so. The heating element wasn't so great, so if it was left on "keep" for too long, the rice would burn a little. I took to setting the kitchen timer to beep at 20 minutes so that I would remember to switch off the darn thing and fluff up the rice. V said that it was not a good rice cooker.

So she went off and bought this new fangled rice cooker with some microprocessor that could detect what sort of rice we were cooking (regular white rice, brown rice, sushi) and our preference (regular cook or porridge). This new thing could also be programmed to start at a certain time or keep the rice hot till we wanted to eat it. Apparently, it could also bake a cake in there as well. Very advanced huh?

Anyway, I am not very good with the rice cooker - I don't quite know how to start it but I am a good cook, just technologically challenged by the rice cooker.

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Thank you Lord

I finally found this song - the video is just a bonus!

Food

Yesterday, we had the largest plate of yee sang salad (raw fish salad) for Chinese New Year celebrations. It was so large that there was no plate. The entire thing was served on top of a pink plastic table cloth on top of the glass table. I wish I had taken a photo of the glorious sight for you!

It was served up by the Chinese congregation in church. They spent hours grating the carrot and radish and whatever else that goes into it.

The wonderful people also made dumplings - there were hundreds of dumplings being served for lunch in church yesterday.

All I can say is THANK YOU VERY MUCH - I really appreciate it when someone else does the cooking and all I do is eat.

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Mom's Song

Sounds like any regular mother yelling away!

Trifle

I decided to make trifle for a friend's party tomorrow for Chinese New Year. This is a recipe for an assembled trifle with "agak" or guessimate proportions - I have no idea how much it feeds at this rate, but it would be good for at least 10 folk depending on how much they eat.

Start with one Sarah Lee All-butter pound cake (available in large supermarkets in freezer section) or some confectionary cake shop swiss roll. Cut into small chunky pieces or slices and cover with the pieces with some sweet jam (strawberry or cherry or raspberry). Then line a deep bowl with the cake pieces. You could also sprinkle sherry (or orange juice) on top of the cake to make it boozy. This is the first part.

Next, top the cake with fruit - sliced peaches from a tin, or boozy strawberries (an earlier recipe in my blog) or mix fruit cocktail (again from a tin) or whatever inspires you.

You can also add some jelly on top of the fruit or just make the jelly and pour over the cake to set - make a complementary flavour such as strawberry jelly with your strawberries, or lime jelly for some tangy contrast to the sweet flavours.

Make a portion of custard with Bird's custard powder and let it cool. Then pour the cooled custard over the jelly and chuck into the fridge for at least 1 hour to chill.

Before serving, top with whipped cream (either DIY or from a can) and sprinkle almonds as a garnish.

QED! Yummy too!

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Chinese New Year

The start of the new lunar year of the ox started on 26 January 2009. Yeah, a little too early for me because we don't get any public holidays till April I think.

Anyway Chinese New Year is a totally non event for me. I don't really clean house, chuck out stuff, decorate or do anything special. I only get all the goodies because I WANT TO EAT THEM! So I get macadamia nuts, pineapple tarts, macadamia cashew sugee cookies and love letters as my snack stash to keep me happy.

No need for bak-kwa because it gets so expensive that I eat it all year round except at Chinese New Year when the price goes through the roof. I don't need to show face with visitors.

There are no visitors because all would have expected HH and I to have gone home to our parents. Haha! we are hiding at home with our two dogs and 3 cats with total bliss.

I have to get red packets ready because there are those who celebrate Chinese New Year and would expect me to give out these packs to their kids. So I prepare a stack of these and hand them out freely to all the kids who appear.

We went to a friend's home for the reunion dinner - a small event with her father, aunty bee, the maid and us, just 6 people who don't really celebrate much. No "traditional" food - just simple food because she insisted that we go over.

Otherwise HH and I have had roti prata at Jalan Kayu or Kentucky Fried Chicken for our dinner as our "reunion" dinner. I shocked one Malay boy a few years ago with my excellent Malay on Chinese New Year's eve by telling him "Tiga keping ayam mesti ada satu keping sayap" translated as "3 pieces of chicken and 1 of those pieces has to be a chicken wing"! He couldn't make out whether I was Chinese or Malay because of my cheena-pek face and my excellent Malay accent!

We went over to my father's cousin's home for dinner on the first day of Chinese New Year. Aunty Florence had insisted that we go over to join in the melee of humans in her small granny flat in Bedok North. There we met my cousins, aunts and uncles and the nephews - I only see them once a year. Of course the aunts, uncles and cousins would know us, but the kids are just happily taking ang-pows from me and forgetting my "aunt" status.

Our forays out of our apartment are just for fresh air to take the doggies for walks, otherwise we spend the time at home reading, watching TV and glued to the computer to check out what is going on in the world outside.

It is a good way to relax over Chinese New Year - just relax lah.

Lift Upgrading

A couple of years ago during the General Elections of Singapore in our constituency of Aljunied GRC, there was no mention of any lift upgrading program for our area. I believe they were too busy fighting or rallying over other things.

Suddenly in 2007, we had these HDB officers going round to tell us that there will be polling for the LIFT UPGRADING PROGRAM or LUP, in Singapore's love for acronyms. HH and I received the circulars on the roadshow, but we don't get any say because we are both not Singaporeans.

Sometime after that polling event, they started the LUP as quickly as possible onf the other blocks. Then on 1 December 2007, the contractors blockaded the area designated for the lift in our block. They put up barricades, netting, cordoned off a large area for about 3 days then STOPPED WORK! Nothing was done again for another 11 months to the chagrin of our poor downstairs neighbours who had to put up with the inconveniences of their mindless blockade and NO WORK IN PROGRESS.

The contractors started work on all the other blocks. One day, I accosted some engineer who was inspecting our work site and asked him how long the upgrading program would take. He said something like another 2 years and I looked at him incredulously in horror. ANOTHER TWO YEARS OF THE BLOODY DIN AND MESS!!

Anyway, the contractors finally surprised me - they started work on our lift shaft and lift on 1 December 2008. YES! One year after the blockade, barricades, netting and mess they started work on the lift shaft and the lift. One day in mid-January 2009, I walked up the stairs and met a lift engineer perched on the top of the carriage. He said to me "Aunty - your lift come before Chinese New Year". I must have been tired because I don't take kindly to the AUNTY title, but since the lift was coming, I just smiled andsaid thank you very much and walked back to our apartment.

Amazingly, they worked and finished the whole thing and handed the lift to us residents on 23 January 2009.

So now we had better make full use of this piece of equipment since we are being charged $30,000 for it for being non-citizens!

Boozy drinks

Some of my favourite drinks are Kahlua and Bailey's Irish Cream - drunk very simply with ice or "on the rocks". Sometimes with the Kahlua, I add some milk or cream - totally yummy!

Of course I throw either of these two boozy liquers onto freshly hulled strawberries for another utterly decadent dessert and top with cream.

So far no complaints from friends who shared my concoction.

Cheater's fruit cake

I was hankering for some boozy fruit cake just before Christmas and wondered how I could get my grubby greedy fingers on some. I was too lazy and busy to bake anything. The thought of getting out the baking equipment was enough give me a migrane.

So I figured the cheater's way of getting some boozy fruit cake with minimal effort.

I headed to the supermaket and bought 2 boxes of Big Sister Fruit Cake - a light one and a dark one. Got home and cut them both in half. Put half a dark cake and half a light cake in a large plastic container. Then did the same for the other two halves.

Then the magic came out of the bottle. I poured brandy onto the top of both cakes into one box and some wonderful 12 year old premium scotch whisky into the other.

Warning - pour the booze on top so that it can drain to the bottom by gravity otherwise you get soggy cake with boozy flavour at the bottom and nothing on top!!

I covered the two boxes and marked them "brandy" and "whisky" and chucked them into the fridge to soak.

5 days later - VOILA! wonderful boozy fruit cake without the hard work.

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Junior's birthday!

JUNIOR'S BIRTHDAY!

Junior with his silly toy on his head,

fast sleep whilst Papa does his work!

Junior very comfortable on the bed

Junior and Torrent in a very cozy cuddle

Junior with Papa

Junior lying on his Mama's stomach;

and feeling very content with life

This is in celebration of Junior's birthday - he is 8 years old today!

Cooking - some basic tomato pasta sauce

A guy friend said to me the other day - I have no idea how to cook but I am quite domesticated because I can clean and do other stuff. He said he could do "cooking" stuff like toast his bread and boil water for his Maggi mee, but nothing particularly high tech or high end cooking.

So this recipe for some sort of basic vegetarian tomato pasta sauce is for Julz who made this confession. This method of cooking is what I call the guess or "agak-agak" method for the proportion of the ingredients.

Ingredient list:

olive oil or any sort of cooking oil

1 or 2 large onions, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 large can of chopped tomatoes

3 or 4 celery sticks

2 carrots

italian seasoning

salt and sugar

Method:

Chop the onions, garlic, celery and carrots. No particular method except that they should be in small bits about the size of peas.

In a large saucepan, heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and add the onions and garlic and cook till translucent. Stir with a wooden spoon to prevent burning or sticking. Add the large can of chopped tomatoes and add 1/2 can of water and bring to low simmer. Add the italian seasoning, chopped celery and carrots and simmer for about 20 minutes till the vegetables are soft. Add some salt and sugar to taste.

To serve:

Add freshly chopped basil and scatter over sauce and pasta with some fresh ground black pepper and grated cheese.

The sauce will taste better the day after it is cooked.

Not so difficult actually - I wonder if Julz knows how to boil pasta. Maybe Maggi mee could be upgraded at this rate!!

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Puncture!

I had a puncture today with the Goo - there was a flat on the left front tyre. It was there the whole day whilst I was in the office and never spotted it till the security guard in the office complex informed me - PUNCTURE LAH!

I looked that the tyre calmly and then thought to myself: OK get ready to get your hands dirty and getting all sweaty. Sigh!

I DO KNOW HOW TO CHANGE A VEHICLE TYRE JUST IN CASE ALL YOU PEOPLE THINK I AM SOME HAPLESS FEMALE!!!

So I took out the wrench and started trying to undo the nuts. I struggled with the nuts, then some guy came along and used his large shoe and foot to step on the wrench. I am not going to spoilt my wonderful Ferragamos to step on that wrench. :-p

After that I managed to loosen all the four nuts and went to the back of the Goo to undo the spare tyre from the bottom of the Goo. There is this nut and bolt system securing the spare in some bracket under the Goo. I had to undo the nut to drop the bracket that kept the tyre and the jack. Then I had to sit on the road to figure out how to undo the latch that was securing the bracket. Voila! The whole bracket dropped and I dragged the spare and jack out.

Then I managed to secure the jack to the reinforced bit and started the tedious process of raising the Goo. This is actually the OK part of the whole job - just tedious because the wrench does not rotate the jack in a full rotation. I had to take the wrench out then fix it back then turn it in a semi-circle and start over.

I also have a problem bending over because I get dizzy, so I had to stop many times to catch my breath and let the blood flow back in the normal way - away from my head.

Some guys from the medical company in our building saw me struggling with this wrench to raise the Goo and they offered to help. But this liberated char-bor declined their assistance saying that I can do it. I think they were a little amazed at my gung-ho attitude.

When the Goo was sufficiently raised, I managed to pull the flat off. I rolled it and chucked it in the back. Then lugged the spare to the front. The tedious part of trying to lift the tyre and aligning it with the nut and bolt holes. Hooray for my colleague J who came down and aligned the holes for me to put the nuts in to secure the tyre. After that came the next tedious part of lowering the jack and the Goo. The exact reverse of trying to jack it up and the wrench does not move in a complete circle.

I managed to get the whole process over and done with in about 3o minutes with my hands and fingers totally grubby after that.

I think I did quite well today - changed the flat and gained some reputation as some capable female who can change her own tyre with the guys in the office building, Heh heh!

Next question - will these same guys come to my rescue if there were a creepy crawlie (snake or centipede or worm or scorpion or lizard) around and they hear my shrieks of terror???

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