Getting back in the game

In February I found a new ping pong buddy. The first time we played, I jotted down this observation on his game: not bad... just not so aggressive, but maybe they will get aggressive if I manage to smash them more often (I wrote "they" because there were two of them, but only one is playing with me regularly nowadays)

And guess what? I was so right...Only three months on and the game is getting faster; I'm barely keeping ahead. Which is a good thing (don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining!). Though I wish I could play like I did before. I still make too many mistakes for my liking...

Hanging out and making promises

It's time I posted up my latest sketches...

First one was done when we were transitioning to Google at the office. From using Microsoft Lync, we would be moving to Gmail Hangouts.

Next, a graphic message.

Broken promises lead to broken hearts.

I didn't expect someone to try and patch things up.

I'm rather touched...and curious. No one has owned up to the act yet.

Today?

That is the question of the day.

I was playing badminton after work, so I changed into my sports clothes in the office. There was only one colleague left there at the time, and he asked, where are you going? I replied, badminton. Then he asked the question of the day: "Today?"

I started laughing... but managed to reply, "Tomorrow?" LOL

He admitted, "I deserved that." Muahaha...

He claimed that he wanted to ask where, but it came out as today. Hmm... I guess that's possible. Gave me a good laugh anyway :D

By the way, this reminded me of another incident with another friend.

I had just gotten a haircut, and when he heard someone remarking on it, he walked over to see. Then he said (or asked), "Cut shorter?"

I replied, "Yes, cut shorter... takkan longer meh?"

This also made me laugh a lot at the time... :D

Spotted in the supermarket freezer

Crêpes camouflaged beside some paratha.

The crêpes are square... not sure whether the edges are folded in, or whether they were cut off. 

This was in Sunshine...

Then in Tesco, I saw a new kind of ondeh-ondeh. I had only ever heard of the kind filled with gula melaka, with coconut flakes on it.

I know this as ta pa kuih, a rather common Chinese snack. (they had peanut filling in the frozen section as well, but I took a photo of this one because the green filling makes it look nicer :P ) I wonder whether it is called ondeh-ondeh for lack of a better Malay name, since it resembles the usual ondeh-ondeh a bit.

I didn't buy either of these... so, there will be no further comments! (in case you are thinking there will be some more photos after cooking...)

Going Dutch

Not sure whether I've tried a Dutch recipe before. But if I haven't, here's the first one!

Some months ago (last October, if my recipe Notepad file was created at that time), a friend made Dutch butter cake and posted a photo of it on Facebook. It looked yummy, so I saved the recipe for "one day". And that day is today!

It's really simple, only using butter, flour, sugar and salt. And everything can be done by hand, no need for a mixer! 

It's not really a cake, though... it's more like a cookie. After baking, you cut it into squares (like shortbread!) and serve.

And the taste? One word: Heavenly. If you love butter you will definitely love it!

before baking

out of the oven!

I have no idea why there are some tsunami-like waves on the cake...

If you want to try making it yourself, here's the recipe: Dutch Butter Cake (Boterkoek)

I should have taken some photos after cutting it into pieces (like that website, and like my friend did); it would look more appetizing that way. But I got busy feeding my mouth and forgot about my camera :P And after putting the pieces into containers, I'm too lazy to bring them out for a photoshoot!

Personal note: I used Anchor butter (New Zealand butter) this time.

Fossilized words

I came across this interesting article recently, on old words that are no longer used nowadays, except as parts of old English expressions. I found that those words sure have rather surprising origins, except maybe roughshod, which I feel we can still guess at its meaning.

Quizzes galore

Lately I've been playing some quizzes on Sporcle. I saved some of my results, because it seemed a waste not to. (pack rat mode ON)

First there was the AL A-to-Z quiz, where we have to find the answers beginning with "AL". The 26 questions each had the third letter going from A to Z, but unfortunately I didn't figure that out until halfway through playing (those are hints!). Anyway, for all these quizzes I paused the game a few times while playing because I didn't want the time to run out. I wanted to think the clues through and get as many answers as I could, without being limited by time.

Followed by another AL quiz, with "AL" in different parts of the word.

Then I found some alphabet food quizzes. Started off with C-foods.

And then Q on the menu, which was a lot harder, probably because Q is such an uncommon letter. Some of these I've never even heard of before. But actually I knew coquille St. Jacques (the last one), except that I probably typed it wrongly (with a dash, maybe? (St-Jacques)), so it wasn't accepted. I even tried typing St Jacques coquille (to use the English order of words), but it wasn't accepted either (I can't remember whether I used a dash in that too!)

Then there's Z on the menu as well, another difficult one. I fared better than on Q, though.

I knew Ouzo! I even tried it when I was in Greeze. But somehow I couldn't remember the actual name... I kept thinking it was "uzo" instead. I had a feeling that I was typing it wrong, but all the variations I tried were wrong too.

In the middle of all that, I tried out a few spelling quizzes too, like this one:

They gave us five minutes for this. Who needs five minutes? :P But then I didn't do so well on a few other similar quizzes... made a number of silly mistakes for trying to be too smart and clicking too fast. :P