Pikachu colleague

We use Gmail at work. As I was typing in the "To" field, a Pikachu came up!

I didn't want to use Pikachu as a profile picture at work, because I felt it would give a rather unprofessional, and maybe childish, image. But it seems that someone doesn't mind that!

Correction

I laughed it off, and was not going to blog about it. But it kept coming back to me, and I was like, I need to remember this, it's going to make me so happy to recall it in future. So here it is.

 Someone who corrects their spelling mistakes! :D

Food case

The other day I received a work e-mail containing the details of a bug that we had to fix. It said:

Bad case: [short explanation]
Food case: [short explanation]

Food? Mmmm...

Of course, it was supposed to be "good case". Gave me a good chuckle...

Fancy letters

When I was small, I bought some fancy letter stationery to write to friends (at least I think it was friends... or maybe it was family too). Recently I discovered some leftovers.

There were only a few envelopes left, and even fewer sheets of paper. I decided to use them all up, pulling out some addresses I had, sending to those I thought might like it.

Little did I think that I would receive a customized Pikachu stationery in return mail! :D
 

Pika-pika!

When I mentioned the letterpad to my mother, she reminded me that I still had another set in Kuantan. I remember that I received it as a gift... it came in a lovely box so I never got around to using it; instead I displayed it as a decorative item. So on my next trip back, I will get those... and then try to find some people to send it to. I hope it hasn't yellowed... :P

The ayam percik story

Last week I wrote about a kuih that I had discovered the existence of.

Well, today I managed to buy it! There were only two boxes left. Roti jala, on the other hand, there were about five or six boxes left. I bought one of each.

So this is kuih serabai.

kuih serabai with its sauce

together with the roti jala I bought from the same vendor

I cut open the kuih and put a dollop of sauce on top for an introductory photo.

The inside is fluffed up like the Chinese huat kuih (that pink one... search online if you can't figure it out). The sauce is really thick and creamy. It tasted okay but I don't think I can eat much of it because of the richness. The taste is nothing much to shout about either... but it's good to have found out what it is. :)

(When actually eating it, I put a lot more sauce than that though)


The stall just beside the kuih jala and kuih serabai was selling ayam percik Kelantan. Six ringgit for half a chicken... minus the leg. The seller asked me whether I wanted the sauce. I said yes, but could he put it separately for me? He said sure... and proceeded to scoop the sauce into a container for me. After that I went off to buy some bread for tomorrow's breakfast... and then, fearing that WW wouldn't have enough to eat, decided to buy some extra kuih from some other stalls further down the row.

As I was picking kuih from a stall, I heard someone say "sorry..." from beside me. I was standing beside the stall at the time, which means I was in between two stalls (the stalls were in a long row by the roadside, on a raised sidewalk). I thought I was blocking him, and moved slightly to let him pass. But instead, he held up a container, saying "Sorry, I forgot to give you the sauce earlier".

I was totally surprised! (and pleasantly so :) ) Okay, so a food seller forgets to include the sauce, that happens easily. But it wasn't like he came after me as I was leaving his stall. I had gone to a shop (in a row of shophouses) to buy bread, and then I came back to the stalls, at the other end of where his stall was. As he found me?? Wow. Maybe he guessed that I would go to the other stalls, I don't know. But really, that was nice of him. :)

So this is the ayam percik (and its sauce with a story)

ayam percik Kelantan

It doesn't look that good in the photo, but it did at the stall. Because you could see that it was smothered in spices. And believe me when I say the taste was great! Even without the sauce, the taste of the spices was already amazing. I don't know when was the last time I had ayam percik this good. So I'm a happy girl today. :D

Greeting cards, past and present

I was browsing through a rack of Raya cards at the supermarket earlier. It has been ages since I actually gave out Raya cards, or Chinese New Year cards for that matter. Nowadays the wishes are mostly digital. A few years back I found a couple of funny Raya cards and bought them to give to friends. Another time, I sent out a few Chinese New Year cards, just for the sake of sending something (after all, I never know what to write in letters these days, when you can keep up on your friends' latest news more quickly online).

Anyway, seeing some cards with "Untuk sahabat" (for a friend) written on them brought back memories of when I used to buy stacks of cards in primary school, to give to just about every one of my classmates. After that, I also saw "Untuk Cikgu" (for Teacher) cards. Also something I used to buy.

I guess, in a way, we're helping the environment these days by not sending so many greeting cards. On the other hand, all the electricity we are using in its place may not be helping Mother Nature that much either. :P

Widening the market

This morning I saw a bread stall selling a pack of six buns...with free butter and sugar in the pack! The butter and sugar were in small transparent plastic containers...similar to the ones MAS uses to pack its ikan bilis for nasi lemak (if they still use the same these days... the last time I saw that was so long ago :P )

Pretty smart sales strategy, actually. I mean, if I didn't have any butter at home, that might increase the chances of my buying those buns!

I didn't buy that though. I bought something else. :P

Kuih serabai

I bought some roti jala yesterday, and that stall also had "serabai" written on its menu (technically it was not a menu, but the back of half of a polysterene box :P ) I asked the seller, what is serabai? She replied that it was sold out. I guess she didn't know how to describe it...

I didn't think of searching for it last night... but it just came back to me. Better late than never, right? :P

So I found this: kuih serabai.

"Ia popular di negeri Kedah, Melaka dan Sabah." (It is popular in Kedah, Melaka and Sabah.)

That's a number of disjointed states...but probably explains why I haven't seen it before. Not found on the East Coast, huh?

Turns out that it's made of rice flour, santan and eggs (plus some other ingredients). It sounds, and from the photo on Wikipedia, looks a bit like the Indian apom to me. Except that this has some sweet sauce to go with it. I will give it a try next time if there's any left!

The curve

I've always disliked it when people disregard the minority. They would make decisions that suit themselves, and conveniently "forget" that a few people in the group might not find it so convenient. Worse, when that fact is pointed out to them, they would say, "Oh, but it's just a few people..."

NO, that's not the way it works! The majority does not constitute the whole. Of course, sometimes you need to make decisions in a big group, and you can't please anyone. But the way to do that is not to exclude a few people "by default", just because it suits you! (okay, maybe you can guess that there was a situation that triggered this, but I don't really want to put the details here)

To cut a long story short, here is the result of that thought. I don't think it's very clear... I highly doubt that anyone would understand the message just by looking at the picture. Maybe I should have written the words "majority" and "whole" on it... but I was afraid I might later have to tell off someone using those exact words and the whole "origin of the drawing" would be revealed. (now that just makes it sound mysterious. lol)

Anyway... I didn't like the above drawing very much. So when I got a new idea, I decided to replace it immediately. I present you... the curve!

More accurately, the lunchmate curve.

Explanation needed? I used to have lunch with all my teammates. Then one left, and then another...one by one my former lunchmates deserted me. *sniff* Haha... it is not that sad, okay? (the number of drops in the curve is not exactly accurate; it is just to give a general idea) In this time, I had moved to a new team (all of us had; because of the company's internal re-organisation), and had also found a few other lunchmates.

Then the curve drops to an all-time low in the present day, because one of my current lunchmates is Muslim and is fasting for a month. Which also explains the prevision. Hehe.

By the way, to anyone who says "It's just a few people...", I have this to say to them: I hope that one day you will find yourself in the minority, and that no one cares about you. 

That would give them a taste of their own medicine.

Of bird thieves and cat murderers

I witnessed a thief making an escape at the market this morning.

Initially I saw a crow flying in the market. Nothing too out of the ordinary. Then I noticed that it had a fish in its beak!

Later I went for badminton... and this time I saw two kittens lying at the roadside. They looked a little like they were sleeping... until you notice that their bodies seem a little too thin. Probably crushed by some heavy vehicle. We keep seeing this in Penang! :(