Everything's toxic

Or at least that's what you'd think...with all the things you hear...don't use this, don't use that... Here are a few researched facts: Toxin du jour

Vegetable puns

Check out these vegetables! :D

What would you choose?

Today I sat for the TOEFL. We had to fill in our native country and our native language. They had the code numbers for several countries written on the board...but no Malaysia! (what to do...only one Malaysian sitting for the test in INSA this year...they couldn’t have anticipated that) So I had to ask them to add the code. After looking up the country code, they asked me what language code I needed. There I went “er...” ‘cos one thing I’m sure of is that they won’t have Hokkien on the list! :P Then they found Malay in the list and added it to the board. Some of my Chinese friends (and by that I mean China Chinese) were telling me “there, you can put the code for Chinese!” (yeah, those people knew there were a lot of Chinese and Vietnamese so they had already written those codes on the board)

In the end I put the country code for Malaysia and the language code for Chinese. It just feels weird to say that Malay is my native language...it’s the national language of my country, but it isn’t my native language! The Chinese were wondering what I would put, ‘cos they know that my mother tongue is a Chinese dialect, but I doubt that the French even saw that there was a decision to make. To them anyone from any country simply speaks that country’s language.

Tell me, what would you have chosen as your native language had you been in my place? (obviously, this question is directed to Malaysians...:P)

(we needed country codes ‘cos it was the “blacken the circle” type of answer sheet)

Anyway it’s been pretty hot these last few days... this morning it rained for a while, a heavy shower that lasted about 15 minutes (or was it half and hour?) I was in my room when I suddenly heard the sound of the rain pouring down...I was kinda shocked, thinking “It can’t be rain, it’s so hot and sunny outside!” (and what’s more, a little earlier I just went out to the supermarket to buy stuff, and it was SO HOT!) But then I looked out of the window and yeah, it was rain all right. With the sun.

The TOEFL was in the afternoon, and nearing the end, it felt so hot in the exam hall, it was lucky I didn’t just burst into flames (ha, that would be a case of spontaneous combustion...) In my own room, thankfully I have a fan...

Starfish or seastars?

Check out this article about starfish not being called starfish any more...I didn't realise that so many things were being called, er, other things now!

And here's another article, just for laughs :P What’s NFL anyway?

Shootbox added

The shootbox was way too annoying with all the pop-ups, and it's not like I have much use for it anyway...so I'm getting rid of it.

Kiwi crumble!

Yippee! I managed to make a crumble...in a microwave! :D

From left to right: before cooking, after cooking, and after cutting ;)

After it's cut you can see the kiwi pieces...I didn't put enough kiwi...I only had one left :P But I could have put less "pastry" (I don't know if we can call that pastry) Before putting it into the microwave I thought the proportions were fine though...

It's really simple to do, you just cut up fruit and put it into a baking tray (I used a bowl 'cos I didn't have a suitable baking tray), then you make the pastry with butter, sugar and flour (same weight of each) and you spread it on top of the fruit. (the pastry has to be mixed by hand; coat the butter with sugar and flour so that it won't stick to your hands ;) )

Then you just shove the whole thing into the oven for 30-40 minutes (180°C, I think...but I'm not that sure :P) That's where I changed it; since I don't have an oven I put it in my microwave for 5 minutes (on high) then I left it to stand for half an hour. I got several useful hints on this page, and by comparing a few recipes using ovens or microwaves I decided to try it with a crumble. :D

The crumble doesn't look so nice because the crust isn't browned...but hey, I'll take what I can get. It smelt and tasted great though. I shall certainly try it again...with apples or strawberries!

For a laugh :D

Go to Google Maps.
Get directions to go from Paris to New York.
Look at step 20.
Laugh! ha ha ha... :P

I got this from a French blog called On apprend tous les jours (We learn every day)

Edit (14th Apr 2008): It seems that Google has corrected their error! Before this, step 20 was "swim across the Atlantic Ocean" or something like that ;P

What do you need to sit for the TOEFLI?

I'm sitting for the TOEFLI next Thursday, and I got an e-mail telling us when to go there, and what to bring:

Je vous vous rappelle que pour le bon déroulement de l'épreuve vous devez vous présenter dans votre amphi à 13h50 respectif , et vous munir des éléments suivants:

• crayon à papier
• gomme
• pièce d'identité avec photo
• montre

It says that we have to bring

• a pencil
• an eraser
• photo ID
• a watch
  

A watch? Why??

I got a new stove!

I had two heating plates like these before, but the small one wasn't working. Since last September I had been asking for it to be repaired (or changed) but kept getting no reply... Then on Monday the other heating plate stopped working! (I think it was because I did a "massive" cleaning of my stove on Sunday...'cos that was the first time I tried using my stove after cleaning it) That same day I went to ask for it to be changed, and surprise, surprise, the next day it was changed.

Oh yeah, and this stove is much better 'cos the old one didn't have numbers on the knobs...at the beginning I had to test it to see where the it was turned on the highest or the lowest... But there's one thing I have to adapt to; the knobs for this stove are inversed from my old one, so instead of using the left knob for the bigger heating plate, now it's the one on the right. But at least there are the little symbols that tell us that...unlike the old one!

But I'm still mad that they didn't change it earlier...I spent eight and a half months with one heating plate instead of two! :/

Do we respect our language?

Do we respect our language? In this case, I mean Bahasa. It kills me to see all the horribly distorted words on the MASAF forum...not that MASAF is to blame (it's almost all the users). A single word is spelt in so many ways...so are no rules respected any more? The weird thing is that it seems like I'm the only one who cares...

Look here, the French have this "phonetic spelling" as well, but there are people who are against it...isn't there anyone who's against this in Malaysia?

I'm not saying that we should spell everything correctly at all times...it's just that there has to be a limit! Even I distort words sometimes...but it's only when the real spelling simply cannot convey the way it's said! I really don't get how people can stand this horrible disfiguration of our bahasa kebangsaan...if you want to be patriotic, one of the places to start is respecting the national language!

How good are you at rhyming? ;)

Find the synonymous word for each word in the following
pair. For each pair, the words you find should rhyme with
each other, the first word being an adjective and the
second a noun. Some of these are easy, others are more
challenging. Good luck!

For example: angry father = mad dad

sneaky insect
humorous rabbit
happy boy
muscular tune
close fright

I got them all! :D
Answers are below.











Answers:

sneaky insect= sly fly
humorous rabbit= funny bunny
happy boy= glad lad
muscular tune= strong song
close fright= near fear

The fisherman

A little something that I found on the MASAF website:

An investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The investment banker complimented the fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The fisherman replied, "Only a little while."

The investment banker then asked, "Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more fish?"

The fisherman said, "With this I have more than enough to support my family's needs."

The investment banker then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

The fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, stroll into the village each evening and spend time with my family, I have a full and busy life."

The investment banker scoffed, "I am a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing; and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat: With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor; eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to a big town and eventually to the the city where you will run your ever-expanding enterprise."

The fisherman asked, "But, how long will this all take?"

To which the investment banker replied, "15 to 20 years."

"But what then?" asked the fisherman.

The investment banker laughed and said that's the best part. "When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions."

"Millions?...Then what?"

The investment banker said, "Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings and spend time with your family."

Why do the French have iced tea that isn't iced?

I have yet to come across real iced tea in France. I mean tea with ice in it. The French take their tea (and coffee) hot all the time, with the exception of when it's bottled tea. I mean this:
So-called iced tea...

Anyway, I tried to find a photo of a glass of Malaysian-style iced tea, but couldn't find any nice ones... I stumbled across this though: a site to learn Malay!

Dried meat :P

Wow, ba gua made it into Wikipedia!

The weird thing is, I got to that page from this one about beef jerky...and the photo seems to be ba gua! And from the ba gua page we can get to the meat floss page...it's kinda interesting to note that the ba gua article exists only in English and the meat floss one in 2 other languages (Chinese and Japanese (hehe, thanks to Chen Min for the info, seeing the words on the sidebar I didn't know that it was Japanese...should have just clicked on it) ) The beef jerky article isn't that "popular" either...it exists only in 3 other languages, but they're German, Dutch and Japanese...that's more diverse!

Why am I late? Because of you!

I just don't get why people can't be punctual. I used to try arriving 5 minutes early, at anything, just so as not to be late. But when you arrive 5 minutes early (preparing to wait 5 mins) and everyone else arrives 10 minutes late, you have to wait 15 mins, and that's long!

Take yesterday. We were supposed to meet up to discuss our project. And one person arrived more than half an hour late. Okay, he had something to do before that, he had just arrived home half an hour after he was supposed to meet us, and he came right away. But, why couldn't he have told us that he couldn't be there in time? Let's say he thought he could have arrived in time, that his previous engagement was supposed to have ended earlier. But, again, when he saw that he couldn't arrive in time, he should have told us! He could have told us before we left to go there, so that we could have waited till he got back, and then (when he got back) he could have called us to let us know that we could meet up for the discussion. But instead of that, he simply let us meet up at the agreed time, and wait for him for more than half an hour. Don't you think we would have better stuff to do in that half-hour?!

For several years now I don't try arriving early, I just arrive in time (for non-official things) And lately, sometimes I even try to arrive a little later because no one seems to arrive on time (like for table-tennis, I try to arrive 5 mins late) And for now, let's just say this: the next time I have something to do with that guy who arrived half an hour late, I'm not gonna worry about arriving on time. If he doesn't care, why should I?

Nice quote

"Red meat is NOT bad for you. Now blue-green meat, THAT'S bad for you!" -Tommy Smothers

Oh so true... :P

Find the name!

Here's another riddle for you:

Using real names to make common words/phrases, name the
offspring: (the first one is given)

1. Mr and Mrs Voyant - Clare (as in Clairvoyant)
2. Mr and Mrs Tress
3. Mr and Mrs Nasium
4. Mr and Mrs Tate
5. Mr and Mrs Anthemum
6. Mr and Mrs Mander
7. Mr and Mrs Mite
8. Mr and Mrs Time








Answers:

2. Matt
3. Jim
4. Dick
5. Chris
6. Sally
7. Dinah
8. Justin

Keeping food frozen

Here's a tip I got:

If you have a refrigerator or freezer that isn't frost
free and you need to defrost, pack your frozen food
tightly in a box that's been lined with newspaper and
put a thick layer of newspaper over it. It will stay
frozen solid for several hours.

Hmm...I should try this... But then, I'll have to find a suitable box first :P

Is it really meaningful?

Yesterday there was a One Day Blog Silence to honour the victims at Virginia Tech.

Now I'm sure you're checking whether I posted anything yesterday :P No, I didn't. But it was more coincidence than design.

When I first found out about this, I was ready to support the cause, and join all the bloggers who were going to refrain from posting on the 30th of April. I'm not sure about Malaysia, but in France we seem to have this sort of thing pretty often... I remember that when I was in Angoulême we had a minute of silence for the victims of the bombings in Madrid (and our teacher told us that two years earlier they had the same thing for September 11) Then not that long ago there was something about switching off all our lights (electricity in general) for a few minutes (5 or 10? I've forgotten...) for some environmental cause (which I've forgotten as well...) I was going to do it, but it turned out that I wasn't home at that time, so all my electrical stuff were switched off anyway.

So you see...for me it's simple; as long as it's not too outrageous I'll gladly join in to support the cause. But this blog silence thing got me thinking. It's not hard to do...you see, I managed it without even trying! Which is exactly my point.

One minute's silence is, I suppose, meaningful. How often do you have a minute's silence? Real silence? I don't have it often...in my room I will usually have music on, even if I myself am silent (who am I supposed to talk to? :P) So if I want to observe a minute's silence I have to make an effort for it... The same thing goes for electricity.

Now about blog silence. My blog isn't that active...sometimes it's silent for days! (and once, for a whole month...when I was doing my practical) So there isn't really a point in having one day's silence. It wouldn't be much different from other days!

Don't get me wrong though...I'm not saying that the One Day Blog Silence isn't meaningful. But I'm saying that it's only meaningful for active bloggers...those who post every day, or almost every day. Those who actually have to refrain from posting. (I'm not sure how many bloggers that would include, though...)

I'm open to criticism about this point of view of things...I'm not really sure how I feel about it yet...things might change!

For those who read everything carefully, you might be asking yourself this: Why did I say that it was more coincidence than design? Why didn't I say that it was pure coincidence? Because it wasn't. I thought of posting something yesterday...then I got lazy and decided to leave it, thinking "hey, it's the blog silence day anyway..."