Hello, Hello Kitty!

I went to Carrefour today...it's been a long time since I went there to do my shopping!

And hehe, I saw Hello Kitty! It seems that she has finally arrived in France (besides my bringing her ;P); I've also seen more of her items around lately.

If only those sofas were bigger... :P

Then I saw freshly made beignets (French doughnuts, I suppose you can call them...) and couldn't resist buying a bag.

five in a bag (I assure you I know how to count ;) ), one without filling and the other four with assorted ones

I ate two once I got back...then skipped dinner and just ate another one because I felt hungry. These two are going to be my breakfast tomorrow (go on, drool! lol)

They were so fluffy...I don't think I'm ever going to buy any "non-freshly-made" ones again! Those are harder, like the ring doughnuts we find in M'sia...but since they don't have the hole in the middle, they also have less "crust", and it so happens that I like the "crust"! Maybe I'll buy the mini ones though...they're half the size (the diameter, I mean) so they're almost all "crust" ^_^

From rookie to rookie

This post is especially for HTML rookies. Not that I am underestimating my readers, but I know for a fact that there are HTML rookies (or more like complete beginners) reading my blog, some (most?) of whom are near and dear to me. So, read on if you think you're a rookie ;) (or if you want to help me with the rookies ;P )

Before I go any further, let me tell you that I'm no HTML expert; I've only learnt the basics and then some extra stuff that has helped me in my blogging. But I do think that the basics are all that matter, because once you understand the logic behind it, you can just copy-paste anything you like :)

So when we write a post with Blogger, there are two tabs (top right). One is "compose", which is usually what I (and HTML rookies) use by default. Here we can add a whole lot of styles to our writing, like font, text size/colour, bold, italics, etc. Click somewhere, and it's magically done. Some of us (like me in the beginning) never even look at the second tab, "edit HTML".

But if we do take a look at this tab, sometimes we might notice that what's on it isn't exactly the same as what we have been writing on the "compose" tab. (it will be the same only if we are typing solely text and that there are absolutely no styles/formatting) Sometimes, take a look at it and if you know nothing about HTML, you'd be so scared that you will never look at it again.

Why? Because if you happen to have a heavily styled/formatted/image-filled post, the HTML code will be filled with lots of tags like this: <...>

(I shall replace the "<...>" with "[...]" in the rest of the post, because I don't want Blogger to think that I'm trying to style my writing!)

(Why on earth did I blab so much about nothing? -_- )

Now to the important part. Basically, if you put a part of the text in bold, it will appear like this on the "compose" tab:

your text

But in the "edit HTML" tab, it will appear like this:

[span style="font-weight: bold;"]your text[/span]

(remember, I changed the brackets)

The same thing happens if you put some text in italic, or as underlined, etc. (I shall assume that my readers are all smart enough to realise that I don't mean that the same code appears in the HTML ^_^) Of course, the more styles you add, the longer the code will be.

There is a simpler (shorter) code to make text bold or italic, though; I sometimes use it if I'm drafting my post on Notepad. (the application on Windows, not a block of paper ;) )
To make text bold: surround it with [b] and [/b]
To make text italic: surround it with [i] and [/i]

And there are of course many other codes that you can use for other styles, but I don't know them all.

But usually if you only want to put text in bold or in italics, you won't need to bother yourself with HTML code. However, in Blogger (I don't know about other blog services) when you upload photos sometimes they don't appear where you want them to. Okay, scratch that, they always appear at the beginning of the post, regardless of where you want them. At first I just had to leave them there, because I hadn't yet discovered the "edit HTML" tab. But when I did, my problems were solved.

Try uploading a photo and you will find that there is a code at the beginning of the HTML that starts with [a ...] and ends with [/a]. You might have noticed that all (most, actually, but it doesn't matter) of the HTML codes start with ["a word" ...] and end with [/"that word"] ("that word" being the same as "a word", of course. lol) So to move the photo, all you have to do is to cut that code and paste it where you want in the rest of the HTML code.

Doing this is quite simple because you can usually recognise little bits and pieces of what you've written in the HTML code, even if it is heavily tagged. So you will know where to move the code. But you have to be careful because if you change the HTML without knowing what you are doing, you can possibly wreck your whole post. (I believe the "undo" function doesn't work when you edit the HTML)

BUT! It is easy to take precautions. What I would advise is to always know exactly what code you cut and from where you took it, and exactly where you put it. This is so that if anything goes wrong, you can find that piece of code and move it back to where it was. (sometimes I copy it and paste it onto a Notepad first so that it doesn't matter if I forget what the code looked like)

And since you now know that codes usually go [x ...] ... [/x], try not to break that code in half when you move it ;) Then things should go just fine.

So to wrap up this "tutorial", here is the basic thing to know about HTML: Anything other than plain text, that you cannot enter with the keyboard, is done using HTML tags. So, any item can be moved around in your post, provided that you know which HTML code it corresponds to. And if you're adventurous, there are a whole lot of codes to be found on the Internet. Have fun! ;)

I felt like a mountain goat!

I think it's time for me to write some more about Greece, before everyone completely forgets that I've written about it before. (or maybe it's already too late?)

The thought, the feeling of being like a mountain goat came to me several times when I was in Greece. So I just had to dedicate a post to it.

First, in Athens. From the Acropolis, we could see this:

See that white rock surface?

We saw some people walking around on it...so after coming down from the Acropolis we decided to go up there as well. There were stairs going up, but there were also stone steps, and we decided to be adventurous and climb up using the steep stone steps (after all, going up is easier than coming down...and we can always use the (metal) stairs to come down!) We happily took photos:

See my disembodied head? That's because my body was down there taking the photo :P
(nah, it was Alex's tripod and timer)

But, horror of horrors, upon reaching the top, there was no flat surface. But since we were up, there was nothing to do but to make the most of it.

Kai Lun and Alex taking photos of each other taking photos

See how rocky that surface was?!

Like I said...we had to make the most of it.
It was really windy too...

A nearby tree (after we got to flatter land); I'm not quite sure why we wanted to take a photo with it :P

After that we were basically in town, so there wasn't much climbing to do...until we got to Santorini.

This was at ancient Thira.

the road we climbed up

and it got steeper higher up...luckily there were steps cut into the rocks

see the path we walked up?

Of course, there was the view from the top:


And on the other side of the roundabout:

It would have been dangerous to slip!

Then, near the red beach:

Really. Like mountain goats on a cliff.
(the red beach is on the right)

'Tis devilish

Note: another bla-bla post. You've been warned.

I awoke this morning, with the sky dark outside. I was thinking, "Oh no, I want to sleep some more...how long till my alarm rings?" You see, sometimes I wake up at 4 in the morning, in which case I simply make a quick bathroom trip and go back to sleep. And sometimes I wake up close to 6am, and I will try to make the most of my last 15 minutes of sleep (and when the alarm rings I usually hit snooze three times, but that's beside the point). I checked the clock; it was 5:45am. I was almost going to stay in bed till I absolutely had to get up, but then I thought that I should probably go to the bathroom anyway, so that I can maybe hit snooze a little while longer.

And in the bathroom my eyes fell on last night's dirty clothing soaking in the pail (I had one of the best badminton sessions, by the way :D ), and I realised that it was Saturday, that my alarm wasn't going to ring for another two hours, and that I could even go on sleeping after that if I wanted to. What dawn-breaking good news! ;P

But the thing is, this has never happened to me before! I have never woken up thinking that I had to go somewhere that morning when it wasn't true. I hope I'm not going to start doing that more often...

And besides, I long for my dreamless sleep. Lately I've been dreaming (almost?) every night, even though when I wake up I can't always recall what I've been dreaming about. This started after I started my internship...so I'm wondering whether there's a connection. :/

On a different note (not sleep :P ), I finally finished reading The Devil Wears Prada last night...so here, I can tell you this: The film was not a reproduction of the book, even though the basic idea (and a lot of the scenes) came from it. The film contained an extra twist in the plot, which actually wasn't so bad. The Andrea in the film was a lot sweeter than the one in the book...it's safe to say that the book is more realist and less fairy-tale. I must say that I liked both the film and the book...though I prefer the film, because in the book Miranda's antics were so dragged out that it was bordering on ridiculous, while in the film they couldn't exactly make it last too long!

If someone thrust a purse at you...

That is exactly what happened to me in the bus today. But let me start at the beginning, by which, I mean chronologically (I have a thing for chronology, as can be seen from my travel posts, and which isn't always good)

Today I took the metro home with Bakary and Fernando (all the interns don't leave at the same time...it's too complicated to explain here (or I just can't be bothered)) In the metro there are groups of four seats, two opposite the other two, so we sat at one of those. There was a place left (four minus three equals one, geddit? lol) and later two girls came in and one of them sat down there. And the other girl stood right beside me (I was facing her friend), I guess it was to look at her friend in the face while talking to her.

Now that's fine, but this girl (mainly her, not the one who was sitting down) spoke really loudly. So loudly, in fact, that I almost wondered whether she was talking to me, or to someone else further away, instead of the girl sitting opposite me. And you would have thought that they would stop chatting, or lower their voices as more and more people came into the metro. (the elevator effect, you know...where people who are chatting will stop when they step into a lift with other people) But no way, they continued...at the same volume. The girl beside me was the worst (the other wasn't whispering either), I felt like she was shouting in my ear. -_-'

And then I took the bus. It was quite full, and I had just found myself a little space beside the window in the middle of the bus (if you've seen the buses you will understand) when someone tapped me on the shoulder (or back). When I turned around I saw that it was a woman who was sitting down in the first row of seats (again, you've got to know the bus "seat layout" to understand completely) And she thrust a purse at me. I was like "Huh? What's she doing?" At first I thought that she had picked up the purse and thought that it was mine, then I thought that it couldn't be, so maybe it was someone else's purse and she wanted me to pass it to that person...and then she said something. I have no idea what she said, I just caught "porte-feuille" (purse/wallet) at the end, but somehow I suddenly understood what she wanted. (I have no idea how or why, can someone tell me? Maybe those who studied psychology? lol) She wanted me to validate her public transport card for her (there's a chip inside so we can just pass it in front of the validating machine (for goodness' sake what on earth is that called?!) without taking it out of our bag), since I was standing somewhere between her and the validating machine.

So there ya go, it was a pretty simple thing, though for a moment I was simply startled. I even thought about that "push-pocket" story...where people put something into your pocket/bag and pretend that you had stolen it. You see, receive too many "horror story" e-mails and you become paranoid...

By the way, today I made "leftovers rice" with leftover rice :P I was going to make fried rice with the leftover rice, but I also had some leftovers from dishes (incidentally prawn omelette and some pork dish with soy sauce) so I cut them all up into small pieces and made my fried rice with that. After all, they're pretty much the ingredients I use for fried rice! I only added carrots and garlic as fresh ingredients. (and oil, of course. lol)

Okay, that's all for my blabbing today ;)

I bring you...the latest episode of...

...recipe dissecting! (I should start tagging my recipe entries...but I'm kinda lazy to sift through all the old ones)

I had potatoes that I had to use up, and salmon that had been sitting in the freezer for some time, so I thought I would try to get rid of both in one go. But the problem was that I didn't know how I could cook these two together!

So, as usual, the Internet came to the rescue. Baked salmon with potatoes was the most suitable recipe I found, and the best thing was that I had almost all the ingredients. The only thing I didn't have was fennel (I don't even know what it is), so I didn't use that.

I did consider substituting the fennel with parsley (the only herb I have handy) but I had never tried a combination of parsley and black pepper before, so I was a bit hesitant. I searched online but couldn't find any recipe with these two ingredients together (even when they are in the same recipe they aren't used together), so I thought, "okay, I won't be quite so adventurous as that!" :P

So here's what I did (you never know when links to other sites will stop working):
I put the salmon on a piece of wax paper (the kind you use for baking...did I mention that I substituted the oven with a microwave and so aluminium foil is a no-no? :P ) after putting a bit of olive oil on the paper (I was afraid the salmon would stick) Then I put the sliced potatoes around it (I didn't parboil the potatoes since I was going to use a microwave), and sprinkled salt and black pepper all over the salmon and potatoes (instead of just the fish like in that article) And added butter. Then I added a "dash" of olive oil like that recipe said...over the potatoes, mainly (the fish was already well "olive-oiled" at the bottom and will be well buttered on the top!)

And then...into the microwave for 5 minutes at 440W (I had set it for 10 minutes, but it started smelling good sometime after 4 minutes, so I stopped it at five to check on it. And little wonder, it was done.

Here's a photo I took halfway through eating (sorry, I didn't think I was going to write about it!)


I love simple recipes :D
(this one was done in 15 minutes...provided you defrost the fish first, of course!)

A peek into the ladies'

This is for you guys...haha.

Nah, not really. Just some more things from work that I felt like telling someone about.

Here is the sanitary bin. It is very sanitary. You know why? Because no one touches it (unless if they want to lah)


See the black patch on the right of the cover? If you look closer, you will see that there is a picture of a hand on it. Move your hand over it and the cover will open automatically. So you only have to place your, um, rubbish there and the cover will close automatically in a few seconds. No need to touch anything that doesn't belong to you. ;)

That in itself wouldn't have warranted a post on my blog... However, there was this as well:


What do you think it is? Pretty clear from the steps given, isn't it? It's to clean the toilet seat. But...I tried it out of curiosity...and only got as far as squirting some onto a piece of toilet paper. I didn't like the smell at all...it wasn't really awful, but it was like...um, maybe floor detergent? (the non-scented type) Oh whatever, I don't really know how to describe it, it just didn't smell nice at all...so I just threw it away without using it. You would have thought that they would put some scent in it...it's a ladies' toilet, after all! lol

We're not supposed to take photos in the company, but if they make a fuss about this I really don't know what to say...it's not like the toilet is one of their top secret inventions! lol

By the way the toilet there is really clean...maybe because there are so few people using it :P In my "office" (more like research lab) there are three employees (they're the ones in charge of us), and at the moment, SEVEN interns (4 of which from INSA...haha, we dominate!) That makes 10 of us...and all the others are guys. There are quite a number of people coming and going all the time, but only once, a woman came in to discuss something. The only other women I've seen in the company were in non-technical sectors: security (ha!), she talked to me about security precautions; the secretary's office; and in the company restaurant. (of course, I wouldn't know what the other women eating there were doing in the company!)

Of pretzels, stop lights and bananas

Pretzels were, for a long time, a mystery to me. I read about it in books, but I had never seen any. I remember a passage in a Sweet Valley High book where Jessica comes home, goes "Yum! Pretzels!" and heads straight for an open bag of pretzels on the counter.

In another book (I've forgotten what book), there was a child who went to a sweetshop and bought a single pretzel. He (or she) had a particular way of eating pretzels; it was by first licking off all the salt, then eating the pretzel itself. It gave me the image of a pretzel being like a potato chip (or more like one of those corn snacks, puffed up...or those prawn crackers), probably because of the mention of "salt" :P

I wasn't much of an Internet user then, so I never went searching for it online. And it wasn't till a few years ago, after coming to France, that I finally found pretzels...and even then I didn't quite understand how it could be that thing I had read about!

On my trip to Switzerland and Colmar, I saw pretzels (they were called bretzels) being sold in a train station (I remember it was while walking out of the station) I can't quite remember whether it was in Basel (in Switzerland) or in Colmar (in France) - these towns are close to each other! I bought one just to try it. It looked something like this (prettier though :P )

It was simply like bread...I liked it because of the crust :)

I'm not sure whether at that time I had already bought pretzels in France. We can find them easily in the supermarket, in the snacks section. But they are nothing like bread; they are hard and dry!

The pretzels are in this form, and also the same form as the bread, but much smaller.
I like this kind less than the bread, though.

You might wonder why I suddenly thought of writing about pretzels...it's because I read this on Trivia Today:

In A.D. 610, while baking bread, an Italian monk decided
to create a treat to motivate his students. He rolled out
ropes of dough, twisted them to resemble hands crossed on
the chest in prayer, and baked them. The monk named his
snacks pretiola, Latin for “little reward.” When pretiola
arrived in Germany, they were called bretzels.

Hard pretzels were “invented” in the late 1600s, when a
snoozing apprentice in a Pennsylvania bakery accidentally
overbaked his pretzels, creating crunchy, seemingly
inedible, knots. Lucky for him that the master baker took
a bite of his creation and loved it!

(the pictures came from Wikipedia)

Besides, I recently came across a quote that made me laugh. Here it is:
"With a stop light, green means 'go' and yellow means 'slow down'. With a banana, however, it is quite the opposite. Yellow means 'go', green means 'whoa, slow down', and red means 'where the heck did you get that banana?'"
-Mitch Hedberg

Sweetest surprise

Two groups with one original member missing.

Westlife first. This is Something right.



And did you know that Us against the world was "global anthem" dedicated to their fans? (if the comment on this video is to be believed) But if you want to see the video, this one is better, 'cos the other one has a sound lag. And just for info, the four children at the start are photos of Shane, Kian, Mark and Nicky, in that order ;) (Nicky was the only one I recognised...)

Then Michael Learns to Rock, with Sweetest surprise.



And while I'm at it, here's Hot and cold by Katy Perry. The video's pretty funny, hehe.

Stuff I found at work

As you might already know, I started my internship two weeks ago. (and I just got my first salary today, yippee! lol) I basically spend the whole day in front of a computer doing research. And in my searches, I arrived on a site called Patent Storm where we can find all sorts of patents. On the left of the page, there was a box entitled "bizarre patents" and there was a link to a patent called "behaviour modification wristwatch". Being curious, I decided to have a quick look. And on that page there was another box, with another link...this time to a "banana protective device"! This is even better than the first one!

And besides that, someone also came up with a "method of swinging on a swing"... These patents really sound kinda silly and useless...I wonder whether any of them are/will be actually used! I wouldn't mind a banana protective device myself...it would allow me to bring a banana out with me as a snack! :P

And I also found this piece of trivia:
When G.G. Hubbard learned of his future son-in-law's invention, he called it "only a toy." His daughter was engaged to a young man named Alexander Graham Bell.

Heh.

By the way, I just have to rant a bit to someone about this site. It's the Tecnord company (it seems to be Italian) On the main page of the site we see this:


The words and flags are links to another page, so I was like "Great, let's go! Which should I choose, English or French?" BUT!! ALL the links go to the same page. In ITALIAN. -_- (at least, I think it's Italian :P) Thankfully one of the catalogs was in English...