Food

So i don't really have anything to post about (or rather i don't have anything non-sensitive to talk about) so i have decided to go into the sideline of.... food reviews!

Of the food around the tanjong pagar area. I mean, since i'm going to be here a while, might as well make some sort of reference material for myself so i remember what's good and what's not...and i wanna test out this blogger photo thing. (edit: which apparently doesn't work.)

So we start off with 2 stalls at Tanjong Pagar Market just above Tanjong Pagar Plaza. (or in it, i can't really tell.) Kudos to Christian for reccomending the place.


For starters: Nasi lemak from 02-43, a very small unassuming stall which is somehow -smaller- in stature than the others, because of a lack of a humongous name signboard. "banana leaf nasi lemak" i believe it's called. or some random other vegetation. Anyway, the point is, it is amazing value for money! for $2 you get what's pictured in the photo above (or below) and the chicken is really good, crispy yet moist inside. Could be because the one i had was just freshly fried and straight out of the kuali. But the other bits are a bit oily.

Er ok i'm rambling. Nasi lemak. Good. Long queue, but super efficient. 13 ppl in 5 minutes.


Annie's Peanut ice kachang. Amazing. the ice is crushed really tiny so it melts in your mouth (well, i mean, like, as opposed to in your bowl). $1.50.

Total cost of lunch together with a $0.60 cup of chin chow (which tasted a bit like barley, dunno if it's on purpose or coz never wash cup....) = $4.10.

Which is about, oh, US$2.50? What can i buy for US$2.50??? Man.

Yes ok rambling. perhaps food reviews aren't a good idea.

Pictures!

So i finally get my camera and my laptop in the same room, and so here are a few photos:



While i will definitely lose out to certain people who can't stop talking about their goodwood park buffets, I can at least have my little joys: pictured is the fried fish thick bee hoon from Plaza Singapura food court. Like, picture me attempting to practise my chinese.
"Auntie, yi ge (wrong, should be wan) zha yu chu mi fen pliss, dankew" (one bowl of fried fish with thick bee hoon noodles please, thanks)

"HAR? san hao ah?" (I beg your pardon, do you mean you wish to order number 3 on that nice pictoral menu i've spent so much time and effort designing?)

"........ya. san hao." (yes, muttermuttermumblemumble.)
Yup that's the noodle. Long queues, but worth it.



Vladimir, who's also an avid chronicler: he brought a camera AND a video cam. and a little cute tripod thing. Yes Rish, i know you can get those for cheap. Yes, i know you could probably even get them for free. Yes, i know you mean without having to steal them. Welcome back, Rish.

Croatia

So today i met up with deadspeaker and starchild and melissa (that's why everyone has such weird nicknames) and deryao and a special guest star: deadspeaker's croatian friend, Vladimir. (his last name...... somehow too complicated to remember.)

How did they meet? well shall we say there were elements of science fiction, technology, and linguistics thrown in.....as well as some hot croatian babe somewhere too.

Anyway the point is that besides our usual catching up, we talked to him about Croatia too, and I learnt a fair bit about this country i knew next to nothing about. About their military and parades and things where Vladimir, as a kid, would pretend to be wounded with a gash on his leg or smth, and lie on the ground and medics would come and treat him, and with all the gunfire and tanks and planes and stuff it almost seemed like a real war.... about how the country was actually pretty modernised and the standard of living was akin to some western european countries until the nationalists put their own people in charge of the successful industrial companies and bankrupted them... about how nobody really reads and children treat the latest harry potter book more like a status symbol than a storybook... which is why the Neil Gaiman books he translated (American Gods, Stardust, Endless Nights) aren't getting published coz the publisher thinks there's no market ("tell Neil Vladimir said hi") and all sorts of things.

So i realise that I've always thought of Croatia as a sort of backward country, in a sort of Goodbye Lenin kinda backward, but the truth is that it's backward only insofar as political regime and public systems are kinda backward, and their level of exposure to technology and pop culture and such are, while not quite as deep as, say, paris, are still reasonably representative of the 21st century. Did that make sense?

Anyway places exist where the whole society has rather different motivations than social progress.

.......

I want to visit them.

Food Blog

So I've decided to start a catalog of all the notable Singaporean food i've eaten. For reference purposes, of course. I might even host it on a good site with nice reviews and pictures and things... but for now it exists as a list on the sidebar.

Tanjong Pagar Rocks.

I am blessed.

Magnetic Levitation

Rush hour.
Jam packed MRT.
But everyone's arranged in a well-packed manner.

Even if doors open on either side at various stations, people in the carriage tend to be aligned in a certain fashion. Sort of like magnetic dipoles... but then once more space opens up they space out automatically. Personal space good, yes? Especially when you have people all around you and you're trying to see if you can align yourself in such a fashion as to maximise that extra few mm of space so you don't get sued for outrage of modesty. So people naturally try and stagger their positions horizontally, until it looks very much like the levels of dermis, and people slipping out twist their bodies in a graceful fluid dance not unlike the conditioning chemicals in some Pantene advertisement. At least this way you're not breathing down someone's neck. (Of course i'm not worried about anyone breathing down MY neck, i'm so tall!)

Can you tell? I forgot to bring a book today.

posting at 8:28am is outside of office time.

So I think that contrary to my previous post, my work is probably also making me more tense. I woke up today automatically after i forgot to set my alarm last night (maybe it's because i have this burning desire to go to work, hmm), and i seem to be slowly succumbing to the escapism that is hiding behind the serious office worker mask. I am here, I am a worker, I am good at what i do and i am proud of it. Nothing else matters. buzzzz.

Don't get me wrong, the office isn't a terribly lonely place (it's only sliiiightly lonely), but somehow it seems much less complicated than life (ha) outside of the place. I don't know what the matter is particularly. If you don't really know me, it's probably a passing phase. If you think you do, then good for you.

Work = FD

well for some ppl like Christian in the Finance Dept, work = FD, but for me, work = MCP. Which is not quite testament to the overall gender demographic of the Market Conduct Policy division... which is a rather friendly and nicely flat place. Not that it really makes a difference to me (yet), but the hierarchy there is maybe 2.5 levels high.

Everyone's pretty friendly, and i've started doing interesting real work (yay) and have kinda settled in to a more relaxed (and hence productive) routine. good. looks to be a nice learning experience. Which is probably a good thing since i'm right outside the offices of the directors of the division and department, so I probably shouldn't be succumbing to desires to slack anyway.

Things i've noticed so far:
1. There seems to be an amazing proliferation of acronyms. TLAs or otherwise. It's truly mindboggling how many acts and bills and forums and things are floating around, even without considering the different departments and groups and such. I'll probably finish my internship being able to speak in some sort of code.

2. The pantry has this super awesome machine where you can press buttons and it dispenses varieties of drinks. (yes i know it's really common, but now i have one in easy reach) Drink which include: MILO, coffee, expresso choc, coffee milk, cappuccino, expresso, hot water......the list goes on. Incredible, isn't it?

3. Lots of food around the area. but i knew that already.

4. I'm starting to read again now that i have to commute. I think it's the only time i ever read nowadays... however i'm getting bored of "an introduction to technical analysis" even if it has lots of pretty pictures of graphs so i'll probably move on to more meaty books.

5. There was this ahsoh in the MRT today with purple hair. Which is a bit schizo. If i didn't look carefully i'd have mistaken her for some punk, except that she didn't have a nose ring and she was yawning after a long day...at work? what DOES she do? Salesperson for wigs, maybe.

6. Herman Miller chairs rock! well, ok, not literally. Well, not reaaaaally. But good ergonomics would probably mean more productivity. And less falling prey to the post-lunch lull. Which i find is starting to affect me to a large extent, how come this never happened in chicago? Must be some artifact of NS and Singaporean offices. Anyway this is probably what that drink machine is for.

7. Hmm, i've just written a long post about essentially nothing. cool. I probably should post a picture or two, but strangely i don't have any! Must start bringing camera around again. Even if its just for the journey to work and home. Which is always the same anyway.

Further observations

1. Why is it so crowded? where did all these extra people come from? Stop making so many babies!!
2. It feels good to be able to stand in a crowded MRT and not worry about someone stealing your wallet...... Well, not worry so much.
3. Marina square has almost, but not quite, finished renovation. Which is ridiculous, 8 months of renovation is just about suicidal if you're a shopping centre on prime land.

Went to rie's place to help her format her com today, and relived all the fun of creating bootdisks and recalling with great fondness the many times we had to do this for various reasons *coughcough kernel32.dll cough*. But of course winXP is a lot easier than microsoft's past track record leads us to expect, and not as many things go wrong as were expected, and so the highlight of the afternoon was really the chicken rice. and prata. and teh-ping. Which actually tastes slightly like the thai coffee at The Snail. Except that it's tea instead of coffee. And not quite as roasted. and more milky. but quite alike anyway.

More amusing than that, though, was the copious amounts of fangirl-ness which oozed out of every pore of her being. I have never seen so much manga in private hands in my life, nor such extensive collections of gaiman/glay/gackt/random Jrock bands which for some reason are tucked away in the most random of corners, ostensibly because "there's no space on the shelves".... but i bet it's some innate deepseated subconscious desire to put the most precious things in the hardest to reach places, kinda like how squirrels bury nuts...

and then forget about them, kinda like how i find it damn amusing how she doesn't seem to remember what she has, despite spending many money on them. So she proceeds to catalogue the stuff, and a shelful of books is moved onto the bed, and i am even more amused by how much sheer STUFF is containable in a shelf or two. But then again i realised that the day before i flew off from chicago ("packing's easy, i don't have a lot of stuff" i told rishi, 1 or 2 days before i stayed up till 6:30am packing just so i could leave at 7:30am with a peaceful heart)...

And even more amazing is the amount of electronic STUFF she has. Like, wah, CDs upon CDs of glay videos and L'arc en ciel vids and stuff and more stuff. Which makes it more difficult to find that elusive antivirus CD. *cough cough squirrel*

And the POSTERS. I never even knew that a sandman calendar existed, or that people might actually buy magazines they don't understand just for the pretty pictures of pretty boys inside. Like, wow, she actually can claim to have collected "everything there is to collect" for some bands. All I ever seem to collect are random photos of fire hydrants. er. Which, admittedly, are less attractive to look at. But then again i've always been damn amused by her infatuation with certain individuals. With dyed hair. And like, loud guitars. Who say angsty things in a language i don't understand.

But yea, must be interesting to have a passion and devote a significant amount of your life to it, and have stuff to show for it. Even if 90% of it is hidden away. like an iceberg. Which kinda forgets that half of it exists.

Oh, and her XP? runs perfectly. All that was really needed was to change the boot order so the CD could format itself. Irritating how old school solutions don't work anymore.

no ries or squirrels were hurt in the writing of this blogpost.

Taking a 2nd glance

So going away for a while and then coming back makes you look at everything with a new sense of wonder and suddenly everything is new and shiny again. And you're thiankful. For all the shiny clean new looking cars, the roads which are flat and pothole-less and have a high contrast between the road surface and the lines, for the way your EZlink card still has money in it after all this while (i must have had the foresight to fill it up before i left) and for being able, finally, to have a viable public transport alternative. And that i can get a nice meal over here for the same price of a bus ticket in Chicago. Isn't Singapore wonderful?

First days

1. So maybe a 3L Ford Taurus IS more powerful than a 1.6L Toyota Corolla. And Toyota Corolla Altises aren't that small after all.

2. (Grocery) Store Wars. Check it out (no pun intended)

Food list
1. Homemade chicken rice
2. Orh-ni, Braised duck.
3. Jackson square ba chor mee (and laksa soup)

First Impressions

1. Singapore is HAWT.
2. It's embarrassing to be Singaporean when all the Singaporeans start queuing up for the plane 10 minutes before boarding is announced. With all the usual queue cutting ugliness.
3. It's embarrassing to be Singaporean when people start bickering on the plane about seating arrangements and giving the stewardesses a hard time.
4. Random American on American Airlines is more friendly and easier to talk to than random Singaporean on SIA.
5. My doors are really light.
6. So're my taps.
7. It's nice to have a bathroom again where all the people who use it (well, ok, me) have the common sense to keep the floor dry.
8. Wow those A4 papers are fat.
9. Nothing's changed.
10. Everything's changed.

Transcend! Transcend!

Liszt is NUTS.
INSANE.



CRAZY!

telnet

.quest
You seek the tome of knowledge, hidden atop the highest peak of the most unscalable mountains in the labyrinth populated by the minions of darkness.

.ready
You equip a Piece of Scrap Paper with runes etched upon it.

.3n2w

.press up button
The carriage arrives.

.enter lift

.press 5
The doors open on the highest peak of the most unscalable mountain.

.1n3w
You can't see anything!
You can't see anything!
You can't see anything!
You can't see anything!

.flick light switch
The light hums and illuminates the surroundings. On a timer, of course.

.look
P299-P310

.read paper
You can barely make out the faintly etched words. They seem to say:"An introduction to discourse analysis" P302.C85 c1

.search P302
You found something!

======

Yes, sometimes looking for material in the Reg seems quite like a quest of sorts. But I really really love this school and its amazing boundless resources. The Reg seems to be just this humongous repository of written material. It's simply amazing. And now i will be good and get back to reading the 4 books on Liszt i borrowed from there.