why are gmail and photobucket being such huge dicks? why, oh wide world of web, why!

anyway, watched Milk last week with ain. man, the ticket counter girl didnt even asked for our id. we're old! this happened to be my first 'legal' r21 movie btw. i remember when Bad Education came out 4 yrs ago, me and ain sneaked into the theater to watch it....good times. this was of course before i discovered the beauty of tor-rent-s. by the way, milk was briliant. sean penn was eerily good in his role, playing a flamboyant gay man. and even though we both knew the ending, ain and i quietly went 'noooo' when he got shot. we had an overpriced dinner at marche('s?) and then some brew at pacific coffee.

presenting ain's bigger than life coffee cup. check out the size of the platesaucer! my iced caramel latte sucked so much, its like god was telling me to stick to starbucks. and ain thanks for the charm bracelet! i valued its short life on earth.

one of the baking books i got for my birthday was this one, and while the cupcakes in the book were cute and all, the cheesecakes were the ones that caught my fancy. so for my mom and nayli's pre-birthday party last saturday, i offered to bake the birthday cake. Chocolate Caramel Cheesecake..... mmmmm.

click for the recipe and lots more photos, as usual. i was anxiously waiting for my nyai's official review and she told me it was very good! this coming from a woman who has never willingly eaten cheese before (much less a cake drenched with caramel), i was grinning from ear to ear. weeeeee. father's side of the family, have no fear! i shall make this cake for nani's birthday!

dropped by borders on sunday (it was one of the only places in town that was open) and bought a james dean poster. having worked there before i knew calendars would go for $5 a few weeks after the new year so i waited and waited some more, even though patience is not my middle name. oh the things i'm willing to do to save $25!

also, balqis bought me the nigella express book omg! how random and awesome. i have already bookmarked so many recipes to try out...... happpppppppy!

oh and happy chinese new year? let us welcome the year of the ox. funny story, i was born in the year of the tiger but before cny so my mom said my top half is of a tiger and my bottom part is of an ox. looking at my big butt i guess the theory must be true.

met up with huda and nayo yesterday! i'm sure you all remember nayo. i'm so glad that she is a happy baby and not scared of people and by people i mean me. urgh cant stand her cuteness. dont be distracted by her smile in the picture, she had just made doodoo! nayo when you are older i will tell you stories about your mummy ok?
lots and lots of stories!

my mom turns 47 today!

went to bishan just to get her a slice of her most favourite cake in the whole wide world... coffee bean's carrot cake. just a slice because my dad is not much of a dessert person and i'd rather eat bad tuna than have a bite of that cake (dont get me wrong, i love carrots but...not in a freaking cake) my dad and i got her a snazzy coffeemaker and a pair of even snazzier heels.

also, guess who else turns a year older today? nicholas gene carter!

dearest nick, my 13 yr old self would like to wish you a happy birthday.

my 23 yr old self would like to ask... paris hilton?

really, nick?

a few days ago, while sitting at starbucks (where else) with nabillah as she studied and i gazed into nothingness and listened to silverchair's reflection of a sound... it hit me. i have a lot of things to say. so i stole a piece of paper from the penguin and wrote out things that i wanted to blog about, things that no doubt in a week i would probably forget. so let this serve as a warning, this is gonna one of those rant posts and i think its gonna be my longest one yet.

to make things fair i shall start with 2 photo posts

a family bbq from 13th&14th of last month, and a dinner with my parents on the 15th of this month (a.k.a. last thursday lol)

let the rambling begin!

ok so as im writing down things to blog about, nabillah whispered to me that the couple sitting behind us were making out (tongue involved!) and the worst thing was that they were kind of old. the guy was this malay dude (maybe in his 60s) and the chinese lady was probably in her 40s. listen, i get it, old people have needs too but goddamn it address those needs somewhere else! somewhere where you are not around people with weak gag reflexes! and they did not even buy any drinks which brings me to the next issue, will starbucks please chase away people who just occupy tables
without getting anything?

so while we're on the topic of what annoys me most, let me rant about my recent oh no you didn't moment. i was on a crowded bus and sitting in the middle of the very last row. nyonya to my right was occupying 2 seats, 1 for her butt and 1 for her plastic bag. thats right, just one plastic bag that was too precious to be placed on her lap. as usual, nobody did anything but the bus grew significantly less crowded after a while so i let it pass. as i was making up a to-do list in my head, i felt 3 hard jabs to my right arm. girlfriend wanted to get off and was elbowing me to move! OH HELL NAW. as she stood up i said to her 'hello, dont know how to say excuse me is it?' and she gave me a blank muker tak bersalah look. they always give the muker tak bersalah look which in turn irks me even more. oh how i wish i could have given her a violent shove without suffering the consequences.

but i dont always hate taking the bus, i mean i prefer taking the bus than the train anytime. crowded trains bring out the worst in people. and on the bus, sometimes tvmobile actually plays something other than mindless repeats and chinese variety shows. my fav? this indian dance show, holy shit i love it when that plays! i think its a group dance contest? it's entertainment is what it is! their costumes and choreography are so 90s that i cant help smiling when i watch them dance with all the enthusiasm in the world. the best part is that since im always listening to my ipod so its like they're dancing to whatever song's playing. once, this group (they were shirtless but had on chains and... paint?) was 'dancing' to timbaland's bounce. was lol-ing in my head. the difference between indian dancers and the rest? they mouth the lyrics to whatever song they're dancing to with much gusto! haahaa.

speaking of which, one of my cousin's getting married early next month and we (the immediate family) are supposed to wear punjabi suits =/ dammit i hate it when the theme of the wedding isnt just...wedding. anyhow my mom and i had dinner at sakunthala's after looking for punjabi suits at the temporary tekka market (my mom bought hers for $22! while i once again couldnt find anything i like)

holy shit guys, best butter chicken i've ever eaten ever (yes, even nicer than usman's!) the gravy was so good i sorta want to drink it up like soup. i want to eat it all day everyday and not worry about my ballooning weight and thinning pockets. also, the fish briyani came with one hard boiled egg which i found really funny.

i saw this recipe online the other day and thought 'goddamn i need to make this'. i even went out and bought a bundt pan and everything! ($7, robinsons sale, happy me) so i went home, started making my first cake ever and bit my nails off while it baked in the oven. after taking it out and letting it cool for a while, i nervously turned the cake over to a plate and lol-ed to myself. my cake looks like those fake looking glossy breads! after a quick taste, i thanked the lord that it didnt suck but strangely (i say strange because the main ingredient is sweetened condensed milk) it was not sweet enough.

so i quickly made a glaze using icing sugar and milk and poured it all over the sucker. imo it tastes like kueh bahulu on crack.

before i forget, me and kham spazzed out last tuesday when we saw Chris Garver! we were just sitting outside Taka and i was whining about the fact that i chose Volvic over Evian because i thought it would be cheaper (it wasn't. $2.50 for a small bottle of mineral water are you kidding me?) when i saw him walking in front of us. i was like 'duuuuude, chris garver!' and instead of going over there and demanding a photo we just sat there and went 'oh my god we saw chris garver what the hell?' and proceeded to spread the news to friends and family. he was walking hand in hand with a tiny chinese woman so that was a downer (sorry nabs) and we prolly wouldnt have gotten a photo cos kham didnt bring her camera along and mine is staging a coup against me because.....

my accidental destructive nature strikes again! my beloved 50mm lens broke (well, it didnt break per se, more like cracked) and i honestly dont know how. ok so i do have a vague idea (i might have dropped my bag real hard once) so i was a walking sad sack the entire time. but luckily my dad inadvertently got me a new one so i am happy again! as a thank you gesture i bought him a book of sudoku puzzles.

sometimes i wish life was as simple as picking out which
blueberry muffin recipe was more appealing.

who am i kidding, i cant even choose a damn recipe without overthinking it. btw i did not know that blueberries are pretty ex, a 340g bag of frozen bluebrries costs $8.35, god. my mom is making me bake them for her colleague's birthday. fingers crossed it turns out good (i chose the recipe from book in the foreground btw, after 24hrs of consideration.)

yes, i tend to over-analyze and over-scrutinize things. its a gift and a curse, although i have yet to come across a situation where it has benefitted me. anyway because of this i cannot know anything distinctive about someone without always thinking about it. like for example when balqis & nabillah told me about hrithik roshan's extra thumb, i cannot watch kabhi kushi kabhi gham without unwittingly looking out for his thumbs. it cannot be helped! so after scouring imdb forums for CSI spoilers, i came across a thread that was about grissom's walk. he is...bow-legged. great, so now i cannot watch csi without thinking about how and why he walks that way. also, this season of csi is making me a big crybaby *spoilers ahead*, first with warrick's death and now grissom left! how long more till the show's swansong? =(

so that this post will not end on a sad note, i want to give a quick shout-out to McCafe's caramel crumb frappe. thanks for your existence in this hard time, i love you.

which brings me to this.
some people would call this unhealthy.

for me and nabillah, its the best of both worlds.
lol hey, you say po-tay-to i say po-tah-toSEDAP.

23years+1 week ago, due to placental problems, i was cut out of my mother's womb about 12 days before i was actually supposed to make my grand entrance.

~the more you know~


what a good birthday this year! celebrated it on the 3rd at my nyai's (she turned 66 on the 5th) with lots of food and love. we sang all the birthday songs twice! first with 2 big candles and 3 small ones for me, then 6 large ones and 6 small ones for my nyai.

and you know me, everytime i'm at my nyai's i cannot help but take pictures of her pretty flowers. i call this ~Beauty amidst Chaos~

i kid, i kid! lol im not pompous enough to name my photos, i just take them.

on my birthday itself, nabillah and balqis surprised me at my door (after making me wait like... forever! how can make birthday girl wait right!) bearing gifts and a cake

lol thank you guys! and kak ameen too! spent the next few hours rushing around vivo and then a huge seafood dinner with an even huger family at newton. got some presents from my wishlist, and then some! so thank you again everyone =)

hung out with kham on monday. it felt like old times when we were fresh graduates, with nothing to do, just going around singapore aimlessly but having fun nonetheless. only this time, one of us was on leave while the other remains a freshbasi graduate.

we went to so many places it was ridiculous. in this order; far east plaza, bukit timah, newton, haji lane, suntec city, peninsula plaza, raffles city.

at haji lane we chilled at mosi cafe for awhile. ice cold mint tea and hummus...yum. before that we ended up at the salvation army at bukit timah while trying to get to a shop at newton called b-i-y. i bought so many things (OKS mah) and then possibly giggled from the excitement of baking new stuff (i got not 1, not even 2 but 4 baking books for my birthday! haaaappppyyyy)

which brings me to my next subject. cake pops and the fact that i made them!

i've always wanted to make cake pops after drooling at the ones bakerella makes. i also made frosting from scratch for the very first time so that was lol-worthy (i tend to over analyze everything when trying things out for the first time. i think i read 23443 frosting recipes before settling on one) my mom said my cake pops look weird, even though i coated them in her favourite colour loh.... *sadface*

i gave one to nabillah on the bus pre dinner at spize

she seems to enjoy it so.... thats good lol

and remember kids, fairies might have their wands, police officers might have their batons, norman bates (dressed as his mother) might have his knife but...

i have my big, red & fabulous spatula!

happy 2009 everyone!

in lieu of any sweaty party among strangers, me and nabillah went out with the family instead. after getting my butt kicked at bowling by my mom (again), we went for supper at this coffeeshop at sembawang (yes amalina, while you were at ~shangri-la~ celebrating the new year, i was somewhere in your area!)

as 2008 ended and 2009 started, i was eating a garlic and cheese naan, enjoying myself with my family around me (we occupied 3 tables!) it was so funny, there was a huge flatscreen tv playing some new year's eve show with the usual chinese people that channel 5 deemed celebrities and during the 10sec countdown to the new year, everyone in that crowded coffeeshop was counting down as well! after the 3-2-1, everyone there cheered and banged the tables and generally creating a ruckus, but it was so much fun. i cant think of a better way to kickstart the year!

how has 2009 treated you thus far? im currently nursing a flu (that's slowly affecting my throat) and a slight fever, lol. 2009 did not start with a bang or a snip but with an
ah-choo instead!