Di suatu malam yg sunyi

Ku pulang ke rumah jam 1 pagi.. dengan gontai menuju ke lif dan menekan tingkat 19.

setibanya di lantai 14, tiba2 pintu terbuka..

Pintu enggan ditutup beberapa ketika...

dan terpampang dihadapanku suatu objek yang hingga kini tidak ku ketahui apakah ia..

any idea?

Projek Hilang Akal

My mum said she could no longer make me baju melayu. After 6 years using the same baju melayu for raya, I got what i thought was a brilliant idea a stupid idea to make my own.

However, I dont have any machine and bringing the one from kampung is out of the questions. Camno aku nak bawa naik flight wei!

So, a month before puasa 2010, I decided to make my own baju melayu, oh well, how hard could it be no? using handstiches method! Bijakkkkkkkkkkk... Little did I know.. Took me almost 4 months (well I was away for for more than 2 months anyway + busy with work and FB)...

Raya tak sempattttttttt....*nanges* Pakai untuk kenduri bulan disember...


Bahan2 asas. Baju lama untuk contoh, kain, pembaris, tali sukat, kertas kajang, krayon/kapur, kertas karbon bewarna, penggelek


Gunting kain mengikut corak yg telah disukat


Perkakas2 yg diperlukan untuk jahitan sembat


Jahit 'outline' dahulu


Mula mula jahit leher dahulu. setengah org akan menjahit leher selepas bahagain2 lain disambungkan.. agak sedikit payah.


Tulang belut, another nightmare.. why oh why! Nak jahit memula kana jahit 3 "sulaman". sulaman 1, 2 3


Lepas tu buat satu sulaman sebelum sulaman 1, yakni sulaman 0, then patah balik ke belakang no 3, jadi sulaman no 4.


ulang langkah diatas sehingga tulang belut terbentuk. untuk demo jer, untuk yg betul benang harus warna yg sama.. saja nak bagi menyusahkan badan.


Siap..


kita fokus kepada jahitan.


Kemudian, jahit poket.


Sambungkan tangan, kikik dan pesak. Dan kemudian barulah dicantumkan badan


Phew, setelah berbulan, siap juga akhirnya. Takde guna mesin okay! semua guna sembat! Tak nampak poket?? ha, inilah jahitan yg mantaps, poket mcm tersembunyi.


Focus jahitan luar .. senget benget.. ok what, percubaan pertama.


Fokus sembatan dari dalam. Only after I was done my mum said that you could use the machine for the inner side, and hand stiched the outer layer. WTH???


Model2 memperagakan pakaian masing2


Alamak sedikit Besar.. baju dan model gemuk... hihihihihi

Takde nak amibik upah yeah.. azab sengsara nak jahit.. pure nuraka!!!

Paip cap ayam sungguh

Mind the bahasa rojak.

As usual lah kan, bila aku busy stress giler nak prepare for new year celebration, time tu lah semua benda nak turn disastrous.

First, rumah cam kandang babi, baru balik dari Singapore pulak tuh, which had its own drama yg amat men-drainkan emosi (ingat nak buat entry berasingan, tapi tak baik ler nak mengutuk mak pak sendiri dalam blog ni kan.. kikikiki). Punya lah malas nak mengemas ya rabbi... alih2 main campak2 jer kat bilik tengah, pas tu kunci! DONE!

Lepas tu pencuci mulut pulak buat hal ... dua kali okay baked pavlova.. haram.. dua2 kes tak mau naik. campak masuk bakul sampah.. dah! concentrate on starters.

Time tengah busy potong sayur, dan dalam kelam kabut alih barang dari A ke B, terlanggarlah papan pemotong dengan kepala pai! Hah ngko, tersembur2 air mcm nak banjir dapur ni ha!

Nak call plumber takde nombor.. arghhh buat sendiri lah..


So, setelah 10 hari gap barulah ada mood nak DIY.


Taada!!! Lepas ni nak kena baiki toile tpulak.. pam dia tak rapat.. air asyik mengalir keluar.. Mau lagi sebulan ni baru aku ada mood kot :p

Note to myself: Nak kena scrub belakang tap... cis..

Removing Rust from the toilet bowl: Finally

Have you had mother of all rust stains on your toilet bowl and refused to go away. To make things worse, the affected bowl is in the guest's restroom.


--(iron out my ass, wasted money only)

For years I had to suffer embarrassment and believe me, since I moved in (or more like since my house-mate moved out), I've been trying EVERYTHING to remove these stains, be it over the counter cheapo stuff like clorox (which make things worst) to the most expensive stuff you get on the specialty shop (ACE Hardware that is :p).

Whenever shopping, I would desperately buy (and try) any product that I run across that claims to remove hard water rust stains -- usually with no success and wasted money.


So today, the same drill took place. WEnt to ACE hardware and found this stuff called LYSOL - Power. At the end of my mind I was thinking, yeah like this RM15.90 stuff gonna work when the RM99.00 stuff doesnt...


I tried it anyway. I squeezed it under the rim all around the bowl, letting it flow into the bowl-- then left to let it sit for a while (30 minutes)while I was watching the Exorcism of Emily Rose, which was another mistake....


During the commercial, I returned to the restroom, half expecting to start the usual pointless scrubbing routine again, and jibberdy dibberdy, I couldn't believe my eyes -- the rust stains were gone! I now have a white, spotless toilet bowl.

Omigod, Lysol does work! 2 years stains were gone in minutes. Now I got a new BFF (right after Jif/Cif) for miracle household DIY kit.

Out of Action for a couple of Months

This blog has been virtually neglected because of:
(1) FB rules!
(2) Office work.
(3) Just when I had the mood to update:
----->(a) The modem crashed
----->(b) The Laptop went kaput


The modem went first.. just when I was busy with MonopolyCityStreets (separate entry, hopefully), it just died out. It only had a power light on and that was it.. No blinking whatsoever. And it happened at 11.30pm! So i had to wait till 8am to made a report (P1 help desk 8am-11pm only).

Wasted another 4-5 days again because of the wrong advise:
(1) The P1 transmitter station in sentul was down.. waited 2 days.
(2) The, allegedly the OS wasn't properly updated. SO i had to leave the device on for 2 days
(3) By third call I was no longer being polite. Only then they said go and get a replacement (like yeah during hari raya, which office is opened?).. So had to go to PJ for a replacement modem.. luckily FOC.


Then, of course the major headache occurred. My 15mth old laptop died. When I tried to boot it up, nothing happened. Just a blue lights (as above) and then nothing.

At first I thought it was because I left it on the carpet and there was a major thunderstorm a night before, and the static has been accumulated, rendered it lifeless.

So, i did everything to "drain" the charge up. Then I thought maybe it was too humid, so I put it under the hair dryer for minutes, nothing happened also.

Called the HP helpdesk, which was re routed to India with funny accent, asked me to do the same which I did previously. I told him, I think the culprit might be the motherboard, he said since the laptop is already out of warranty, I might have to purchase the new set + the service charge. No price tag was given, therefore I went to the HP service center in Bkt Damansara and it was bloody RM$1200 (Just for the mother board)!

Are they insane? I might as well bought a new one.

Then I decided to google, and lo and behold, Im not the one who experienced the same thing, there's even a group in FB about the lousy design of HP laptop.

The problem is with the combination of HP laptop + NVIDIA grahpic processor + Vista. And HP wont admit its design flaw.. Well, those affected users are gathering signatures for class suit action.

They managed to sue NVIDIA, HP is Next! Woo hoo.

Anyway, i found the solution posted on youtube:



First step, took out all the components.


This is the culprit. The thermal compound evaporated and accumulated around the graphical processor, cutting off the link to the motherboard.


Baked it under the 120watt spot light for 2 minutes.



Made a trip to Singapore to get the Thermal Conductivity Compuound at the Sim Lin Square. I could have swear Low Yatt should have it as well, but those stupid ah beng dont speak english, and gave me the bank look when I asked for one (even after I showed them the picture, they gave me the superglue).


Smeared it, and put a penny/1 cent/brass/gold to maximise the contact point between the fan and the graphical processor unit.


Reattached the fan


Reassembled your laptop. Wait for the compound to dried up (a day is enough). PRAY!


And voila, RM1200 has been saved! F off HP... Im so changing to MAC after this.

DIM: Do It Meself

Apart from being busy with work and the farm I was also busy with the home improvement's stuff.

Bought a rack and a bed. The rack was a cinch (thanks to the instructions)...


First, take out all the parts..


start assembling .....


Ikea stuff was easy. There's already a holes for everything, its hard to screw up.


and voila..

As for the bed, when the guys delivered it, I confidently said that I could assemble it myself.

The thing is, their feets were so stank I almost choked.. So I said just put them in the living room. TQVM..


3 months went by in between.. only by the middle of last month did I tear open the wrappers.


And lo and behold, this bed frame didnt come with an instruction... And there's no pre-fab holes for you to agak2. WTF!


So I just assembled as I deemed fit..


but of course there are part on which I totally clueless on where they belong to... and its been a month already.. so far, quite sturdy... Jangan roboh sudah.. hi hi..

This is not a dining room conversation

Had small makan2 at my place last weekend.

Of 8 people agreed to come at 4pm, only 3 showed up on time... EK got a class, so she only came after the photo sessions with the camera whose the owner doesnt know how to use the timer function. kinda fishy isnt? ended.

Since it was neither lunch nor dinner I had hard time to decide what to cook. At 9 a.m I called my best friend and ask her what she felt like eating today. Of course she wasn't invited for my makan2, but just to irk her shall she read this, i decided to cook what she was craving *boo hoo* :p

The first thing on her list was rendang. To be frank, I accidentally put lots of water inside, therefore, the chicken was tad chewy. There was no complain, but lots of praise, some even ask for the recipe... so I kept mum.

Anyway.. the recipe is:

CHICKEN RENDANG
======================
NOT this rendang ok!

To blend together, DO NOT PUT TO MUCH WATER TO BLEND:
2 inch galangal
1 inch ginger
10 sticks lemongrass
8 medium shallots
1 clove of garlic
1 candlenut (buah karas)

1 whole chicken. Preferably ayam pencen (retired chicken?!).
and yes mek, you can subsitute the chicken with ms. piggy

20 dried chillies (more if you like it hot) soak in the hot water and blend
1 cup thick coconut milk
3 tbs kerisik (coconut paste)
2 leaf of turmeric leaves
A pinch of salt


Heat the pan, put in blended ingredients. After 3-4 minutes, add in the santan. Leave to boil.


Add in chicken + salt. Cook over small heat till the chicken is tender. Could take 1-2 hour. Add kerisik. When the gravy thickens, add turmeric leaves.

Nice to have with plain bread.. Yum Yum.
==========================================

As for the prawn, wanted to do the infamous buttered prawn. But much to my chagrin, only small shrimp left!

In the end, i made the turmeric prawn:

Had to wear the glove.. Dont want to end up with yellow nails. Tak mahu tuan rumah lebih selekeh dari tetamu.. hi hi.


The ever so simple prawn. I had to cook them twice to feed the night shifter.


BT, CT and PL.

Those small eater! I cooked enough to feed a small country, but how much did they eat? A plate of those scrumptous nyonya nasi goreng, a piece of that heavenly rendang and small portion of those succulent prawns instead!

Ingrate!

He heh, actually it was my fault. It was neither lunch nor dinner. So I cant force people to eat meh...

Oohh, did I mentioned they brought gift too? They got confused between housewarming and open house, but hey, no complain :) TQ..

Next was the dessert.

I dont know what others called it, but I call them Apam Betawi. It's not really an apam because I dont use yeast. More like steamed cake.


To prepare, beat the eggs white till your hand went numb.


Steam it.


Eat it. It should be fluffier than the one I made. I guess I beated too slow (need more practicing beating something).

BT: You should beat it properly, otherwise the cake will masuk angin and went flat.
Me: I had to manually beat them oooo..
BT: You should have told me! We could get you the egg beater.
Me: Yeah, like Pensonic one. Thanks hun, but my vainess wont allow it. I would rather have calloused hand than touching Pensonic. I thought like quipped. But since the lundin (lunch-dinner) was for her farewell to the new assignment overseas too, I was scared later she wont allow me to lepak at her place. I just said: "yeah la" *with sad puppy face* instead.

Enter the wonderful world of interaction skills, where you have to conform to specific conduct in order to gain acceptance.. hi hi.

Anyway, by 7.. everyone had left. That leaves me with abundance of rice, plenty of prawns and 3/4 of the, antibiotic free-organically fed-free range, rm24 chicken.

There's no way I could finished them all by myself. What to do?

By 7 I frantically sms fellow bloggers I met a nite before. Phew, they agree to volunteer to taste my food.

So, by 9 there they were. The makan2 continued with a minor change in dessert. We had ice-cream instead, complimentary from Zal (in lieu for the rendang recipe).

Mental note for future makan2:
1) Get a cleaning service to clean the house/plates.
2) Get the paper plates instead. Easier.
3) Buy KFC instead of cooking :p
4) If the guest insisted to clean the plate, let them be...