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Sunday, August 29, 2010

Strawberry yogurt ice cream

After Shu-Yin tried this out, I wanted to make my own as well. You can get the recipe from here though it's for blueberries, where else I chose strawberries because it's so much cheaper and I like strawberries more.


Tried to force Yin How to help me out in the kitchen. He helped me take out my under-utilized mixer from the cupboard, got fascinated and was playing with the different speeds of the mixer for a while, then got bored and left the kitchen.

The outcome of my strawberry yogurt ice cream - Yummy.




Saturday, August 28, 2010

Favourite Movies

Had dinner with the girls and we were having this long debate over how I like The Kite Runner movie and how much they hated it. And then they asked me which movies are my favourite (because they no longer trust my taste in movies), I went blank.

I always know which are my favourite books, never thought about movies. I love books because you get to know the characters in books personally, their thoughts, their emotions, their relationship bonds. Unlike movies where you only get to know the character for 2 hours. Spent the whole drive back home thinking about what my favourite movies are.

I think my all time favourite is The Band of Brothers. I loved that mini series because it's based on true events and they interview the real life people whom the characters are based on at the beginning and the end of each movie. I like movies like these because it makes me aware of what other people in the world go through or went through making my own problems seem so small in comparison. I won't say it's my favourite but I liked Slumdog Millionaire as well, not so much because of the story line (which I didn't like the predictable happy ending), but for opening my eyes to the living conditions in India.

I guess the Kite Runner wasn't the greatest movie. Probably if I had read the book first, I would have hated the movie (like how I almost hate every movie after reading the book). But again, it was an eye opener to me on the sufferings of the Afghanistan people. It made me go out and buy A Thousand Splendid Suns which is now one of my all time favourite books.

Other favourite movies,

The Rock, Enemy At the Gates, Atonement, Pride and Prejudice, Shrek 1 & 2..... that's all I can think of right now.

What's yours?

Russell now owns my sister's bed


Genny, if you don't come home soon, he's going to start marking his teritory there. ;)

Sunday, August 22, 2010

10 books

Out of boredom on a Sunday morning, I decided to update my Library Thing with the books I've recently read. My last update was in February and since then I've read 10 books. That's almost 2 books a month (I'm so proud of myself).

And again, out of boredom on a Sunday morning, I'm listing all the books here.

1) The story of Edgar Sawtelle



I bought this book because Oprah was going on and on about how great this book is. And since the story is about a mute boy who grows up rearing their own special Sawtelle breed of dogs, I was thinking I would love this book. To my disappointment, the whole storyline of this books was pointless and the most frustrating thing about the pointless storyline was the pointless ending. The story was so pointless that I went online to read forums hoping to get some light on the ending. This is one of those books which has a lot of "isi tersirat" and it's up to you how you want to interpret it. Didn't like the book.


2) The Kitchen God's Wife

I was running out of books to read so I dug out some of my sisters old books. She is an Amy Tan fan but for some reason I was never interested in reading books about any Asian culture. Since young, all the books I've read was always by American authors and their American ways of life. With no other books to read, I choose this book.

The book is about the relationship between a mother and daughter. Mother came from China, lived through a lot of hardship and managed to migrate to U.S. later. Daughter, having brought up in the U.S. has a strained relationship with her mum because she cannot understand her mum's old conventional ways. The storyline then focuses on the mum telling her daughter about her life back in China digging up all the secrets hidden in the past.

After reading this book, I think understand why the older Chinese generation act the way they do. It kinda opened my eyes a little and made me realize that just because I've been brought in the modern world with my modern thinking doesn't mean I always know better. This book sparked my interest in reading books focus on other cultures thus I bought the next book below.

3) Wild Swans


I loved this book. Wrote a whole post for it here. The books is an autobiography of 3 generations in China, beginning with the author's grandmother, her mother and then herself. It tells of what life was like in China over the last century. Definitely a must read.


4) Starting Over

The book is about a middle age man who has a heart attack and recovers thinking he has a second chance in life. It makes him rethink about everything about life and decides to quit the job he finds meaningless, becomes a friend to his teenage children and a lover to his wife. However, things don't always go to how you think it would be and he may end up losing everything instead.

This book was an easy read, though I didn't like the ending. A story must have an ending, a conclusion, a summary to make all the hours I spent reading the book worthwhile. And when the book doesn't give me a satisfying ending, I'll not like it. After this book, I decided I won't buy anymore Tony Parsons books.

5) In Her Shoes

At this time, I found the 2nd hand bookshop that Shu-Yin blogged about here and I now only buy books from there. All books from here onwards are all from that little bookstore in Island Plaza. In Her Shoes is a story about 2 very different sisters. The older is a responsible plain woman with the prestigious college degree and career, where else the younger sister is a gorgeous hottie who jumps in and out of waitressing jobs always relying of her older sister to save her from any fix.

I loved this book. It's witty, it's funny and it shows that no matter how much your sister drives you crazy, she will still always be your sister (So Genny, I forgive you for stealing all my shampoo and conditioner).

6) The Pilot's Wife

I picked this book because of the "Oprah Book Club" logo. Decided to trust Oprah again. This book is about a woman whose pilot husband died when his plane crashed, killing all passengers on board. As the story unfolds, the devastated wife finds more and more secrets about her husband that she never knew. You think you know a person, but how sure are you? While reading this book, I repeated asked the hubby over and over again, "Are there any secrets you're keeping from me????" I enjoyed this book.

7) Chocolat

Boring book. I forced myself to read this book since I already bought it. Won't say much about it.

8) Keeping Faith

I loved this book. And I'm now officially a Jodi Picoult fan. This book is about a seven-year-old Jewish girl who starts telling people she sees God after her parents divorced. Throughout the whole book, you'll wonder whether she really is seeing God, or is it part of her imagination.

9) Enduring Love

I bought this book because it's by the same author as Atonement and I loved that movie. However, I was disappointed with this book. Predictable storyline. Not worth the read.

10) Man and Boy

I know I mentioned that I wouldn't buy another Tony Parsons book, but a review of this book came out in the newspaper. This book has been translated into 38 languages wor..... it has to be good right? I just finished this book last week. Story is about this 30 year old guy who has everything. A beautiful wife and son, a fabulous career, and wonderful parents however he finds that he has reached a stage in life where he feels stuck. In just one night, he finds himself losing everything he has and the story goes on from there.

The book was okay. I'm not jumping up and down about it, but it was okay.


So there we have it, boy and girls, the 10 books I've read. I've just started the non-fictional The Bookseller of Kabul. Seems like a good book.

Any books you wanna borrow from me, just let me know. :)

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Dearest

Dearest gray company, I hope you realize how hard your engineers work for you.

Dearest hubby, I promise I'll stop buying new shoes, new clothes, new bags every weekend... once the Mega Sales are over in September.

Dearest tummy, please be patient with me and not give me gastric whenever I feed you too late.

Dearest Russell, why do you make me yell at you every single day? Though when I don't yell at you, I start worrying what you're up to.

Dearest Sparkle, you seriously need to lose weight. I can no longer distinguish whether it's you or the hubby who is snoring at night.

Dearest little Kelisa, please stop making so much noise. It's embarrassing when people stare.

Dearest Bayswater, after 3 years, you still make me sooooo happy.

Dearest Saturday, I wish you would visit more often.

Dearest pizza, I shall not be looking at you for a very very long time.

Dearest new pair of shoes, I love you. You make my feet look so sexy.

Dearest friends, I miss you. Can't to see you girls soon.

Dearest sister, remember my Roomba and Scooba!

Oh, and dearest sister, when are you and your boy ever going to start kissing? It's been 6 weeks already!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

I seriously need to work out something soon. Work has been crazy busy. I've stopped my aerobics after skipping it so often. And after the hubby moved to his new job, he comes home later than me. Which means after I reach home after 8pm, I've got to clean up after two mad doggies. And for a few days, I was crazy enough to even try to cook after coming back so late.

Bought 2 large pizzas. Ate pizza yesterday, today lunch and dinner and probably for lunch tomorrow again. I'm going to be as fat as Sparkle soon. And the boss suggested maybe having pizza for dinner tomorrow, my tummy did a not so nice turn.

Don't even dare to ask me the infamous baby question. My answer will be no time la!

How leh? Gotta think of something soon. Some kind of system. I'm quite sure humans were not made to live on pizzas forever.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Hachiko

Oh and I watched Hachi last night. I've heard of the true story of a dog in Japan waiting at the train station for his master who died to come back everyday day for 9 years, but I didn't know a movie was made out of it until I read chioju's blog.




I cried so so so so so badly during the show especially when Hachi was so old, he could barely walk but he still made his way to the same stop at the train station, still waiting for his master to come back after 9 years. I've never cried so much for a movie. The last time I cried this much was for Marley and Me (the book, not the movie, the movie wasn't that great).

The hubby thinks it's silly to cry for movies (in fact he thinks it's silly to cry for any reason) and I could sense he was doing everything within his will power to refrain himself from teasing me while I was sobbing my eyes out during the movie.

I suddenly wanna go and get an Akita now. I seriously doubt Russell would be so loyal to me. That dog will choose a hotdog over me any day. ;)

This is an article about the real Hachi.

The weekend

Weekend didn't go quite as what I expected. The PC fair was a huge disappointment. I assumed that it would have good laptop deals. However when I got there, I found that the price they were quoting was RM400 more expensive than what is offered online.

"Miss, you cannot get a bargain better than this elsewhere, we throw in 20 different freebies and you get a lucky draw free holiday as well"

"You are directly from Dell right? Why is the price here RM400 more expensive than what you offer online?"

"No, miss, it's not more expensive"

First of all, don't lie to a customer, we do our own research okay. Secondly, if you are planning to lie to a customer, make sure you are prepared with your facts.

I took out Yin How's wonderful Blackberry and showed her the Dell website stating a price RM400 cheaper with exactly the same specs. The salesgirl had nothing to say and called her supervisor and passed the Blackberry to him. He looked at the price online and said, "Oh, that is for online purchase. This is for cash and carry," and just walked away.

So that's his only explanation of me having to pay RM400 extra for that?

PC fair really cheat people wan okay. If I didn't do my own research beforehand, I would have thought I'd gotten the best deal there. Went back sooooo disappointed. Thought I would be carrying a laptop home. :(

Anyway, I made the purchase online. So I'm a happy girl again. :)