Shopping and Lamb Chops

Posted July 28, 2005 at 6:51 pm in Food/Eating, Trips & Travel, UK

So after the fantastic English Breakfast to start out my day, hung around for a while and headed into town for a couple of hours, managed to pick up a pair of casual shoes, a couple of pairs of work trousers and a pair of jeans from next.

I mainly planned to buy work shoes and work trousers, so the rest is a bonus, was a bit late though, and living in Malaysia I’m really not used to all the shops closing at 5.30pm sharp..and all the cake shops were closed so I didn’t manage to get my cream cakes 🙁

Headed home and mom started up dinner, another masterpeice of classic simple English cooking.

Start out with some nice fresh beans, take the stringy bits off and chop up some carrots..

Roast some lamb chops in a cake tin, until the rind is crispy and the chop is still juicy..

Slice some potatoes fairly thinly, put a layer of milk in the bottom to stop them drying out, put a little salt and pepper on each layer, microwave them for 10 minutes, then stick them in the oven with the chops.

After the chops are out of the cake tin, pour in some hot water, mixed with corn flour and a bit of beef or chicken stock and boil it up till it’s nice and brown and thick from the meat juice and fat..

Serve it all up on a plate warmed under the grill (yes we warm our plates here, if you don’t, it’s so cold the cold plates cool the food down quickly).

Take some mint sauce (made with fresh mint from our garden and malt vinegar)

Pour gravy all over and an ample serving of mint sauce with a touch of salt..

A lot of people ask me what English food is like, “Isn’t it boring?”, well this is what it’s like..

Actually you can’t really get anything like this in resturants, UK is all about home-cooked food, and no, I don’t think it’s boring anyway 😉

We didn’t have any dessert after that, was kinda full.

Next up…Mom’s bday lunch 😉

*EDIT* Sorry these are lamb chops, not pork chops, I got confused, pork chops are much bigger and are served with apple sauce, lamb chops with mint sauce!

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Continue Reading · 14 Comments · Food/Eating, Trips & Travel, UK

English Breakfast – JUST WHAT I NEEDED!

Posted July 27, 2005 at 11:36 pm in Cooking/Recipes, Food/Eating, Trips & Travel, UK

So after sleeping like a zombie for 14 hours I crawled out of bed and took a shower..

Take a shower is quite an experience here, like in Malaysia you take a shower to cool down, when you take a shower here, the temperature is about 15 degrees so as soon as you step out you start freezing to death..

Got downstairs and my mom had started cooking up one of my favourite things in the world, THE FULL ENGLISH!

You need some nice juicy mushrooms, man I REALLY MISS MUSHROOMS..

Yeah, good big fresh mushroom, can’t beat it..

Stick them mushroom and some huge tomatoes in the grill (in the bottom of the grill under the mesh)..

Then you grill the sausages and bacon on top of the mesh, so all the juicy goodness drips onto the mushroom and tomatoes and they soak it all up…hmm nice

Fry a couple of eggs to perfection

Then whack it all on a plate..man it makes me salivate just looking at it.

Serve with crusty white or wholegrain bread and orange juice, perfection!

Orgasmic!

More posts coming soon…its 2am now so I better go to bed..got some visiting to do tommorow.

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Continue Reading · 22 Comments · Cooking/Recipes, Food/Eating, Trips & Travel, UK

The Arrival..and the STEAK!

Posted July 27, 2005 at 8:31 pm in Food/Eating, Trips & Travel, UK

So after the gruelling journey and the drawn out stop-over in Amsterdam (which turned into an impromtu blogging session[/url]), I finally arrived safely back in fair old England.

I was greeted of course, in style with typical beautiful British weather….GREY SKIES AND DRIZZLE..

For the past 5 weeks they’ve been having 30 degree temperatures and mediteranean weather, nothing like me coming back home to turn that to shit.

Was kinda weird to be back and nice at the same time, Malaysia feels more like home now even though I’m more familiar with UK after living here (in different parts) for 26 years.

Nice to see my mom after so long of course too..

I bought her back loads of nuts and stuff and some of the weird Indonesian snacks I picked up on my travels (and a few of Uncle Ho’s favourites, plus a bottle of decent Whiskey for her birthday).

As expected my mom whipped up a storm on the first night…cooking up classic salad with horseradish..

Smoked salmon with lemon garnish on wholegrain bread..

A nice bottle of Wine..

And a glorious rump steak and chips (YEAH PROPER ENGLISH CHIPS NOT SOME SKANKY FRENCH FRIES!).

After the lack of sleep for a day and half and half a bottle of red wine and a lot of chatting, I was ready for bed, so 10pm I crawled off to bed and knocked out til mid-day next day..

The story continues (Watch out for more gratituous pictures of food soon).

BTW Win98 sucks….I had to download a 3MB driver just to install my pen-drive…that’s why I’m so slow blogging, and dial-up, I can’t get my laptop to dial even with an RJ11 converter, because of a stupid cross modem cable or something. Annoying shit. So I’m blogging from an ancient PII-333Mhz I gave to my mom a few year ago. I just installed Firefox though and I gave her MSN (Had to download IE6 first though which took some time..).

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Continue Reading · 10 Comments · Food/Eating, Trips & Travel, UK

Stop-over in Amsterdam – Hardcore porn anyone?!?

Posted July 25, 2005 at 5:08 am in Trips & Travel

Ok so I’m in Amsterdam, Schiphol Aiport to be exact.

I left to KLIA last night only to find out the plane was delayed 1 hour 20 minutes because of a connecting flight from Jakarta, luckily I managed to jack some free WiFi near KFC….

…and had a few smokes, the time passed fast enough.

The train to the terminals was the emptiest I’ve EVER seen it, obviously Sunday night is not prime time to fly.

The plane finally left around 1:40am from KLIA, with me in a crappy seat, I mean really crappy, not even an aisle seat, no exit, no bulkhead, luckily the guy next to me didn’t mind swapping to the middle seat, perhaps the “I’ll crush you” look on my face persuaded him, I was kinda pissed with the attitudes of the MAS staff.

So I spent 12 hours sitting like this:

Not the best experience ever.

There was a lot of kids around but they were all pretty well behaved, just the fat old aunty in front of me who was determined to jam her chair back as hard and often as possible and break my knee-caps in the process..

I was walking around in the middle of the night as I couldn’t sleep…I took a seat on one of the crew seats to stretch my legs, bitch came up to me and said..

Bitch: “You can’t sit there”
Me: “Er why not? Where do you want me to sit then, on the floor?”
Bitch: “Isn’t the seatbelt sign on anyway?”
Me: “You are the senior stewardess, you should know, and as it happens no it’s not on.”
Bitch: “Well you can’t sit there, because of the safety equipment”
Me: “Oh I see, so you need special training to sit on this seat? Give me a logical reason why I can’t sit here and I won’t mind”
Bitch: “Well you can’t and you can’t sit on the floor either”
Me: “Ok I’ll just wonder round then because if I sit in my seat any longer I’ll be crippled”
Bitch: “I’m sorry”
Me: “I’m sure you are, you look extremely sorry”
Bitch: *nods*

I was kinda pissed then, so I drank like 6 gin and tonics and tried to get some sleep, I think I managed about 4 hours for the whole flight.

I saw the sunsight but was too sleepy to get my camera, extremely beautiful site, sunsite from the air.

It was and clear after that..

Then I woke up and had breakfast, am still feeling a little dehydrated though.

I’ve been here around 4 hours, so I’m quite bored, I went shopping for a while, bought some perfume, ate my super rings and bought 24 hours of net access for 10 Euros, it’s 6 Euros for 30 mins or 10 Euros for 24 hours so…

Yeah I know it’s still RM45, heavy eh?

But still using the broadband here makes me miss European Internet connections..

Stops me dying of boredom though, or falling asleep and missing my flight.

I checked out the bookshop, for some, er books..but found this instead:

Ass Parade was pretty price though at 60 Euros..

Now here I am blogging in a cyber thingy in Amsterdam airport listening to hardcore Vocal Trance…

More reports of weird European stuff coming soon.

Continue Reading · 39 Comments · Trips & Travel

Leaving on a Jet Plane.. (To UK)

Posted July 24, 2005 at 5:58 am in Trips & Travel

Don’t know when I’ll be back again..

No, not really I’ll be back on August 3rd, I’m heading back to UK for a deserved break and to see my family, which I haven’t done for about a year…

Service may be intermittent for the next 8-10 days as the day I get back I have to fly straight to Manila for an audit. Should be back all in all, 7th August.

Promise to take loads of pics, and I will be avoiding London, I stay near Birmingham so should be pretty safe.

I’ll try to get online whilst I’m away, super power UK dial-up.

Thanks all who came to Kim’s party, it was short notice but was a nice turn-out.

I’m sure Suan[/url] and Kim[/url] herself will post pics soon.

Cya!

Continue Reading · 9 Comments · Trips & Travel

Party Tonight in SS3 for Kimberlycun’s 21st Birthday

Posted July 23, 2005 at 7:30 am in Parties & Gatherings

I saw some of you mention that you would like to come if there was a party..

But it was all hush hush because it was a surprise, til like an hour ago when SOMEONE ruined the surprise duh.

If you know any of us involved, or met us at the PPS bash you are welcome to come along, I doubt many people will read this as it’s already 8.30PM on Saturday night, but if you don’t have plans come along.

It’s just behind Taman Bahagia LRT station

If you know any of us you should have our numbers, call if you get lost.

Or post comment with your email in the next 10 mins and I’ll send you my number.

Cheers!

Continue Reading · 3 Comments · Parties & Gatherings

Happy 21st Birthday to Kimberlycun!

Posted July 23, 2005 at 3:08 am in General Nonsense

Well I happen to know she loves that big nose shortass Tom Cruise.

SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

My photoshop skills aren’t up to Galvins[/url] calibre I agree, but well I tried!

Suan’s collage is hilarious, check it out HERE[/url].

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Continue Reading · 1 Comment · General Nonsense

Xia Xue got totally PWNED – BACKUP YOUR STUFF NOW

Posted July 21, 2005 at 10:30 am in Hacking & Infosec

The famous egotistical XX bloggerXia Xue got owned last night..

SHE GOT OWNED HARD, LIKE IN THE ASS WITH A CHILLI PEPPER COVERED BAT.

She is full of shit, she is full of herself, she isn’t hot, she writes a lot of angsty crap but does have some great posts, whatever she’s done however and however much of a cunt she is, she doesn’t deserve this…

3 years of blog entries gone

3000 e-mail and contacts gone

Dear readers of xiaxue.blogspot.com,

Yes, indeed, my blog has been hacked. I understand some of you might be sending emails to me right now, alerting me, and the thought warms my heart (which is very startlingly cold right now mind you).

Unfortunately, the hacker is quite clever. He also managed to guess the password to my gmail account. My 3,000 emails, some of which very important business contacts, are all gone.

I don’t like her, but I do pity her, whoever did this good job, but well it’s not really a cool thing to do…

I’m a l33t h4x0r so I backup often, the reason I don’t use blogspot is because I want to backup my posts and comments easily.

Anyway best practise is BACKUP YOUR SHIT OFTEN.

That goes for your PC too, you don’t know when your hard-drive is going to conk out, organise your shit and burn it to CD.

DO IT NOW DON’T CRY TO ME WHEN YOU LOST YOUR PHOTOS OF LITTLE JOE HUMPING HIS SISTER.

Backup your blog, backup, backup backup everything, twice, three times, DO IT.

Buy some CD-RW and do it often, that’s how I do it.

You can even leave the damn CD-RW in the drive permanently unless you want to burn something else and schedule it.

That’s also why I shifted to Thunderbird, it’s so much easier to backup than Outcrap Express.

Anyway I Xia Xue I think you are a cunt, but I pity you, and frankly your situation sucks.

Hope you manage to restore everything back to normal service, I do enjoy your posts from time to time 😉

Continue Reading · 23 Comments · Hacking & Infosec

Google customised home page & Firefox 1.0.6

Posted July 19, 2005 at 11:36 pm in Internet & Tech

This is pretty neat, haven’t seen anyone mention it so I thought I’d just point it out, charitable guy that I am 😉

It’s something like a personalised portal interface, it’s actually pretty neat, after you’ve selected what you want to show, you can drag and drop the boxes around to get the layout just how you want.

It doesn’t have that many options at the moment, just the normal ones like BBC, Wired and Slashdot, but it’s pretty neat and serves as a nice homepage, especially if you are primarily a gmail user.

You can check it out here: https://www.google.com/ig

Some other resources I use are:

https://www.securitynewsportal.com
https://infosecdaily.net/securitynews/
https://www.digg.com/
https://www.newsnow.co.uk/

Also as a side note, a lot of you are probably still using Firefox 1.0.4, 1.0.5 just came out a few days ago and has been supersceded by 1.0.6 which came out last night (due to some stability issues with the new API implementation.

Why Use Firefox?

“Beware of spyware. If you can, use the Firefox browser.” – USA Today “Better than Internet Explorer by leaps and bounds.” – FORBES

Popup Blocking
Stop annoying popup ads in their tracks with Firefox’s built in popup blocker.

Tabbed Browsing
View more than one web page in a single window with this time saving feature. Open links in the background so that they’re ready for viewing when you’re ready to read them.

Privacy and Security
Built with your security in mind, Firefox keeps your computer safe from malicious spyware by not loading harmful ActiveX controls. A comprehensive set of privacy tools keep your online activity your business.

Smarter Search
Google Search is built right into the toolbar, and there is a plethora of other search tools including Smart Keywords (type “dict ” in the Location bar), and the new Find bar (which finds text as you type without covering up anything).

Live Bookmarks
RSS integration lets you read the latest news headlines and read updates to your favorite sites that are syndicated. (This means you can easily watch blogs for new posts as long as they have RSS/XML/Atom feeds)

Hassle-Free Downloading
Files you download are automatically saved to your Desktop so they’re easy to find. Fewer prompts mean files download quicker.

Fits Like a Glove
Simple and intuitive, yet fully featured, Firefox has all the functions you’re used to – Bookmarks, History, Full Screen, Text Zooming to make pages with small text easier to read, etc.

S, M, L or XL–It’s Your Choice
Firefox is the most customizable browser on the planet. Customize your toolbars to add additional buttons, install new Extensions that add new features, add new Themes to browse with style, and use the adaptive search system to allow you to search an infinite number of engines. Firefox is as big or small as you want.

Setup’s a Snap
At only 4.7MB (Windows), Firefox takes just a few minutes to download over a slow connection and seconds over a fast connection. The installer gets you set up quickly, and the new Easy Transition system imports all of your settings – Favorites, passwords and other data from Internet Explorer and other browsers – so you can start surfing right away.

Get funky extensions here: https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/?application=firefox

My favourites would be:

1) Adblock
2) BBCode
3) Bugmenot
4) Dictionary Search
5) Forecastfox
6) LiveHTTPHeaders
7) Wordcount
8) Download Manager Tweak
9) IE view

And you can read more about WHY you should use it HERE[/url].

Get it now, reclaim the web!

SPREAD FIREFOX – SIGN UP NOW!

Along-side that, Thunderbird 1.0.6[/url] has also been released, I recommend upgrading both to the latest versions.

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Continue Reading · 8 Comments · Internet & Tech

Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War

Posted July 18, 2005 at 9:35 pm in Movies

When a group of Korean archeologists find a skeleton and identify it, they call the brother, Lee Jin-Seok, who is now an old man, to tell him that they have found his brother’s body, who died in the Korean War. We travel from the present to 1950, when the Korean War started. Jin-Seok and Jin-Tae, Jin-Seok’s brother, are young men who suddenly find themselves catapulted into a bloody world so different from their quiet, rural lives. As the war progresses, the war begins to poison Jin-Tae’s mind. Jin-Seok is lost when he finds that he no longer knows who his brother is.

This is a truly great movie, I’ve heard a lot about it and have been meaning to watch it for some time. I bought the DVD in Brunei, but honestly the quality there sucks, perhaps it’s why they are cheaper than in Malaysia..

It stalled at chapter 9, so I went out to SS2 and got another copy and continued watching.

I thought it might be good, but I was pleasantly surprised at how good it really was.

Since its release in 2004 is has climbed into the top 250 movies at number 247, a testament to it’s quality as there aren’t so many foreign films in the chart.

It’s a very gritty and realistic war movie portrayed with a lot of emotion and from some degrees it shows both sides of the story, more of an anti-war movie than a war movie, it’s terrifying, shocking and disturbing.

The battle scenes are perhaps some of the most graphic ever shown on the silver screen and the reality of war really hits you in the stomach, it truly shows with war there are no winners, you see the changes in people, the emotional trauma caused, the mass executions carried out by the government on innocent people and the persection.

The story revolves around two brothers (Dong-Kun Jang and Bin Won) and the way the war changes them, the lust for killing and the darkness that takes over when everything around has turned to chaos, it has been likened to Saving Private Ryan[/url], but I personally feel it’s a better movie.

It’s not just about the action, it has great acting, great character development and it’s an emotional roller coaster, in places it’s also extremely graphic. A lot of it is based around relationships and the North/South divide in Korea.

Even if you’re not a pussy or a fagboy, it’s quite probably it’ll bring a tear to your eye. I defy any girls not to cry when watching this movie.

At almost 2.5 hours it’s a fairly long film, but you get absorbed you don’t feel the time passing..

I’d say it’s actually one of the best movies I’ve seen for quite a long time, a diamond in the rough.

Highly recommended, go get a copy from your local Uncle Ho outlet now!

I give it a gripping 9 out of 10

Continue Reading · 12 Comments · Movies