Micro-blogger extrodinaire!
419.bittenus.com is a great educational site to warn and advise people on the tactics used by email scammers and what to do to avoid them, and if you so wish, use the examples to fight back!
Contains lots of links to other scambaiting sites and pictures of scammers and I must say some of them look pretty hot! 
[link: 419.bittenus.com]
The time of the Poloroid camera and film is coming to an end. All that flapping the newly ejected Poloroid picture from the camera will soon be a thing of the past as the company has stopped production of the Poloroid film for good.
[link: Coolest Gadgets]
For that someone who requested for the recipe, here it is. 
Ingredients:
1kg green prawns
3 cloves garlic
1cm piece ginger
4 spring onions, roughly chopped
2 green chillies, seeded and chopped
3 tablespoons oil
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/4 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 cup coconut cream
1 cup coriander leaves, chopped
Method:
1. Peel the prawns, leaving tails intact. Slit open along the back and remove the dark vein.
2. In a food processor, grind the garlic, ginger, spring onions and chillies to a paste with the oil
3. Transfer to a medium-sized pan and cook for 2 minutes.
4. Add the ground coriander, fennel and mustard seeds and coconut cream and cook for 3-4 minutes.
5. Add 1/2 cup water to the garlic and spice mixture, cook uncovered over a medium heat for about 4 minutes.
6. Add the prawns and cook stirring until the prawns are just tender and pink.
7. Stir in the chopped coriander, serve immediately with rice.
Recipe obtained from the Step By Step series of books, this one titled Indian Cooking (ISBN: 0-86411-190-8).
While Godiva chocolates are oh so good, occasionally the simple chocolate bar off the shelf at a supermarket tastes just as great. Like the Green & Black’s organic dark chocolates with orange and spices. Trin bought this at Naturally Marketplace at Vivomart in VivoCity. This supermarket stocks up lots of organic foods, not that I’m a big fan of organic food, but these chocolates are excellent!
Useful tools to keep your online privacy safe and secure. Can also be used to stalk your enemy’s blogs. 
[link: Virtual Hosting]
Proof that you don’t have to have an astronomical budget to produce a good commercial. Nike always comes up with great ads. I love these, especially the one with the girl body-slamming her boyfriend.
[as seen on Superlocal]
It says a lot about two people who can stand being with each other on Valentine’s Day after a gift of garlic chocolates.
It also says a lot about how weird and silly some companies can be in trying to cash in on the Valentine’s Day mania.
Local company Takko Shoji had been developing the product from the end of last year, saying it wanted people to become more relaxed about eating garlic. After many trials, it was finally able to match black garlic, which has a sweet-and-sour taste resembling prunes, with the bittersweet taste of chocolate.
A spokesman for the company says he’s not worried about people being put off by the stinky breath from such chocolates.
"If both people eat them, there’ll be no problem," a representative of the business said.
Excellent reasoning, man! Pffft!
[link: Asian Offbeat]
This teenager has a baffling condition that makes her throw up any solids she tries to eat. She survives on a specially formulated feeding tube and …. tic tacs.
[link: Spluch]
It was supposed to be a fun day at East Coast Park beach for the kids. We drove up to the nearest McDonalds, got ourselves something to eat from the drive-through and headed over to the nearest convenient car park (E, I think?). As usual during a public holiday or weekend, the place was swarming with families and overnight campers - minahs with wet hair (obviously after a NOON-TIME shower) were in abundance, coming out of their tents.
We got ourselves a (relatively) clean table, and had a quick bite, but unfortunately Ayeed didn’t like the place and he told us in no uncertain terms that he should be in the stroller and be pushed everywhere like the pampered prince that he thinks he is. But I wasn’t having any of that and proceeded to unbuckle him from the stroller and told him to go walk about like Ajab who was busy running about. Maya was ok, sitting quietly with Trin, enjoying her first experience at the beach.
Ayeed though could not be appeased, even with mouthfuls of his favourite McDonald’s hotcakes. So I had no choice but to put him on the stroller and he, Ajab and I went for a stroll.
Both were OK for a while until we passed by the car park and Ajab thought we were going to drive off, but of course we weren’t yet, so it was his turn to throw a tantrum, which in turn ‘infected’ Ayeed who also started to get cranky. So back to Trin and Maya I went. We packed up after barely half an hour, not even going down to the beach, and went back to the car where we were frantically deciding where to go next. We initially wanted to go to Changi Beach, but a wrong turn and a few quick checks later found ourselves at Suntec City. The boys had fun checking out the Batmobile.
Time for lunch soon followed and it was another moment of searching and thinking before we decided on Siam Kitchen. It was the first time we dined at a restaurant with all three kids and we were quite relieved that all of them behaved themselves, especially Ajab who fed himself rice.
His teacher had asked us to take a video of him feeding himself as part of the assessment of his gross and fine motor skills. I’m sure she’ll be happy with his performance, although he wasn’t holding the spoon as correctly as possible, but he only dropped a couple of grains of rice and had a couple more stuck in his hair due to his habit of wiping his hand on his head.
Before going home we checkout out what the fuss was all about with Punggol Beach, a rather boring, dirty little strip of sand facing the industrial site and port of Pasir Gudang, just in our backyard. Nothing much to look at actually. We’ve only ever been there years ago when we first moved in, before Ajab was born and haven’t been back since. No parking, no facilities, not much of a view, I doubt we’ll be going back there anytime soon. Maybe after the proposed redevelopment of the beach, which should have been started years ago as planned, will we be spending time at the nearest beach to our place.
For now, I think the National Service Resort and Country Club at Tanah Merah looks the most viable option for the kids to swim. Free, ample parking, near enough from our place, nice pool. I like it! I hope Ayeed will learn to like it too the next time we go there.
Maya watched Baby Einstein today and she loved it. It was also the first time I managed to capture all three of them in a single shot. Made a video of the occasion too.
Notice how happy she is. And notice how the boys recognise the fire truck on the TV, with Ajab babbling and Ayeed going “loyeee” (anything big with four wheels is a lorry to him). 
I don’t know which is weirder - the host looking like a poodle with that hair, or the backup exercise participants dressed in poodle costumes. WTF!
[via Hemmy.net]
Recipe coming up soon!
Fat, chbby fngrs has kaut em kabz!
It was a little iffy on the night before the planned outing to the National Service Resort and Country Club with my cousins on the first day of Chinese New Year as Ajab was down with the flu and was coughing quite badly (he was wheezing in fact). But he made a quick recovery in the morning, up and about, running and jumping all over the house, so a quick sms to my cousin to confirm we’re ok to go, got everything ready and off we drove to the resort, about 15 minutes away from our place.
As usual, Ayeed got all cranky when he saw my cousins and aunt there. He still hasn’t gotten over his fear of strangers. Neither has he gotten over his fear of cold water, initially refusing to step into the pool, even though he was wearing his brand new wetsuit type of swimsuit. Even Ajab was a little apprehensive with the temperature of the water - his hydrotherapy sessions in school are conducted in a heated pool, after all. But they soon warmed up to the surroundings and after the initial bout of crying, both were happily splashing away in the pool.
Picture courtesy of fuzzyfish on Flickr.
Maya was well entertained by my aunt and cousins, happily grinning and gurgling away, only getting cranky when she wanted to be fed.
Picture courtesy of fuzzyfish on Flickr.
These days, with Trin going back to work, Maya is formula-fed in the day, supplemented by expressed breastmilk. At night she’s on 100% breastmilk.
After the swim, the boys had a runabout at the playground, where Ayeed slid down the slide on his own for the first time.
It was then off to the airport (again!) for lunch at Terminal 2. As Ajab found out, there was nothing much that everyone fancied, so we ended up eating at Burger King.
Our outing ended by 2.30pm when we reached home all knackered and the boys and I took a well deserved nap.
These things brings back so many fond memories of my childhood, especially in primary school, where little packets of these things cost 10, 15 cents, maybe? I spent many a recess time happily munching on them with my classmates. My diet was practically supplemented by cuttlefish and chocolates, instead of the much needed vitamins and minerals.
So I was really happy when Trin bought me this from the supermarket.
Don’t be fooled by the size of the tin. It only contains a small pyramid-like packet. And the crispy cuttlefish? Not nicely rolled like in the picture on the tin but broken into little pieces.
But I don’t mind. Pop a handful of these babies in my mouth, and I’m in heaven! Probably the only thing that can match it is ‘deng-deng’.
It was a half day at work as usual on Chinese New Year eve and we found ourselves at VivoCity for lunch. After getting some stuff from Toys ‘R’ Us, we were thinking of a good place for lunch that wasn’t too crowded. You know me and crowded restaurants and it was the eve of CNY. The whole place was packed with last-minute shoppers and diners. I was even contemplating taking out some sandwiches and sushi and eating them in the car some place, but we decided against it seeing as how hungry we were, that small $7 box of sushi isn’t going to do much help relieving our hunger.
So we decided to head on over to Harbourfront where we thought we could satisfy our craving for sushi at Sakae Sushi. Once we got there and we saw the queue, it was time for plan B - Spizza. The menu looked good enough, but to our disappointment, we were told that they were closed. At 3pm? That’s early, even by CNY eve standards. Therefore, left with no choice, plan C was in place. Off to Coffee Club we went where we finally sat down famished and had our lunch.
Iced mocha and latte
Peri-peri chicken with pene
Soft shell crab with miso soup and pasta
Muddy mud pie
Overall it was a good lunch, with the food excellent as usual at our favourite coffee place, but the one thing that irked me was this waiter, a newbie probably, who was not only a little messy in appearance, his hands were wet when he handed me the billfold AND …. he wiped them on his pants as I was signing my bill. WTH?? That is so unprofessional of him! Good thing I didn’t really noticed his hands and I had already finished lunch some time ago. Gross!
You know how some products have odd taglines for their products? I was at the pharmacy the other day when I came across this product:
It’s supposed to be some kind of aid for breathlessness. The tagline, which read “for anyone who breathes” seems weird, doesn’t it? I mean, the manufacturer might as well say it’s “for everybody”, because anyone who breathes is like …. everyone. Who is alive, that is. Because it’ll be stupid to market a product to someone who does not breathe, ie. dead, wouldn’t it?
They call it "the mother of all telephotos". The Canon 1200/5.6L USM super-telephoto lens is a rare beast with "more than twelve, less than twenty" of them sold. Why? It costs US$99,000, that’s why!
If you wanna clearly photograph something from a couple of miles away this would be the ideal lens for you. If you can afford it.
[link: B&H Photo Video Pro Audio]
This woman’s dermotographia, where any scratch on her skin would result in hives and welts temporarily, has enabled her to explore a rather curious art form where she makes scratching patterns and words, then photographs them.
[link: Ectoplasmosis]
Sanjay Dutt is going to star in the remake of the 1984 movie Ghostbusters. Very interesting! Will the Stay-Puff Marshmellow Man dance around the streets, I wonder?
[link: Bollyvista.com]
February 12th is National Pancake Day. The couple of times I’ve had McDonald’s pancakes has left me wanting more. I should ask Trin to make me some for breakfast during this long Chinese New Year weekend!
(picture from Sweetnicks on Flickr)
They cancelled their tour. Booooo!!
“We have children,” Posh said. “Kids need to go back to school and we’ve always said that our families are our priorities so we want to thank all of our fans. Sorry we haven’t got to see everybody. We had a great time.”
What a lame excuse! Can ah liddat? Might as well schedule the concerts around their school holidays right? Pffftt!!
[link: Just Jared]
The aunties at NTUC won’t be happy if they found their favourite supermarket littered with objects used for a super-sized domino stunt around the aisles.
The kids better hope I don’t turn out to be like this guy, urging his baby to put in more effort in his (her?) crunches!
Tim Gunn, fashion guru and co-star of the highly addictive Project Runway, says he is appalled by the fashion choices of the elected officials in the US.
I was on the Hill just this time last year, and I had all of these elected officials literally running from me saying, "I’m not a fashion person! Don’t look at me!" In the beginning I thought it was kind of sweet, but the more I thought about it, I began to find it appalling. You’re an elected official. How many people see you and make judgments about you before they ever even know your point of view? I have to do something for these people.
I hope he’ll consider doing something for the people in our Parliament. Have you ever been to the Parliament or watched the sessions on TV? Have you seen what our MPs are wearing? With all due respect, some of our politicians should really ditch their golf jacket and pants look and put on a suit and tie - their fashion sense has been discussed and dissected many times before.
Yes, I’m talking about the male MPs. I have no qualms about the way our female MPs dress. Thumbs to them. Mostly.
And hats off to MPs like Mr Inderjit Singh who is always impeccably dressed for Parliament. And why is it that Nominated Members often dress better than the other MPs?
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Pat Law
