Thursday, July 20, 2006

we didn't start the fire - billy joel

tried doing a blog post last night on my world cup blues but the browser hung and i felt too lazy to re-type everything again...essentially in a nutshell, not a fan of the penalty system to decide games. rather have 22 men play until they are so tired that goals are scored with the ball rolling/drifting in slowly to goal. it isn't sadistic, it's the proper way to settle a game. and not have luck favour one team with 50-50 guesses and the other team with naught to be proud of...

nostalgic mood today...'we didn't start the fire' by Billy Joel. still a great classic.

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny RaySouth Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio

Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, TelevisionNorth Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe

Rosenbergs, H Bomb, Sugar Ray, PanmunjomBrando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye

Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen

Maciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and ProkofievRockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dancron Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock

Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team

Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland

Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, KhrushchevPrincess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, KerouacSputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai

Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseballStarkwether, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide

Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, MafiaHula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go

U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and KennedyChubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Hemingway, Eichman, Stranger in a Strange LandDylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion

Lawrence of Arabia, British BeatlemaniaOle Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson

Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sexJ.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airlineAyatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicideForeign
debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie GoetzHypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it

posted by inspirethereal @ 9:50 AM 0 straight, not straightened

Monday, July 17, 2006

Lunch at Wildrocket@Mt. Emily and buttermilk is good for you!

(author's note: i took like 2.5 hours to post this cos the photos just keep not appearing after loading them up - anyone else having the same problem? it's 2 freakin' am in the morning now..*YAWN* sorry sam, am leaving out your mouth cos blogspot takes forever, will email you the pic later)

had lunch today at Wildrocket @Mt. Emily today. this is a restaurant situated on the ground level of a backpackers' hostel/dorm. but honestly, as a back-packer, having to travel all the way to paradiz centre at selegie, up Mt. Emily, pass the back of the istana and onwards to the far end of the road to find the backpackers'? i really doubt so. BUT still it looked rather nice & chic & welcoming in its own way and would have attracted me if i were in a foreign country on $50 a day or something like that. something tells me the one at Mt. Emily would be more than $50 tho.

also becos sam says that it is very close to the main road and that it takes less time to walk there than drive...ok sam i believe you. *fingers crossed*

anyways, i digressed, so the restaurant is based on the ground floor, rather small establishment, waiters all dressed in differing states of uniform. the chef/owner being the most towkay, with the polo tee and berms whereas the younger looking wait staff got cargo pants and polo tee. definitely got structure and hierarchy la! higher up can wear more slack! *grin*

we tried out the pan-seared tuna wild rocket salad. despite the long name, it was some really good tuna (cold) over a salad. not too bad actually. the table more or less decided to focus our mains selection on the pasta today - we had some laksa pesto spagetti, crabmeat linguini in chilli tomato cream sauce, shiitake mushrooms spagetti with white truffle oil. dessert was coffee, chocolate lava gateau (picture left out due to non-loading of jpeg) and amber walnut ice cream. pictures as follows.

btw, this is a different type of food blog. not as many perfect pictures of the presented food but more the action of the food being consumed. eh, we singapore lang tio boh? why show the makan when we can show us makan-ing?


***
Buttermilk? Spread the word.

Despite the name, buttermilk is a great secret for low-fat cooks to keep up their sleeves. Buttermilk is either skim or low-fat, and fermented with beneficial bacteria that leaves its characteristic tang. Its acidity helps keep baked goods tender without adding fat, and its creamy texture makes a good base for salad dressings. It's a delicious addition to mashed potatoes and makes a thick, tangy, low-fat soup base.

posted by inspirethereal @ 2:00 PM 0 straight, not straightened

Saturday, July 15, 2006

just the days in perspective...

it's been a long june/july - world cup has come and gone. isn't it amazing the feeling that the world cup can inspire and when it is no longer around, the sudden lack of motivation that accompanies it?

so my first teams - Spain and Czech Republic - both didn't make it to the finals. I threw my bet between Brazil and they failed to make the cut. Has anyone seen the graphics in the TNP about Roberto Carlos supposedly kelong-ing when Henry ran in to goal-scoring position? Crock or bull, you decide. next i took a look around, and decided to root for Italy. poor Azzurri had their backs against the walls cos of the match-fixing scandal back home. bringing home the World Cup wasn't just to emerge triumphant and look like champions; it was a way to safeguard their future against being fined, sent to jail or worse. judges were commenting (opinion-ing?) that if they win, that the win should be taken into account for leniancy as they were heroes. against that backdrop, i felt that the Italians had more to overcome mentally and internally then the French who just had an old team and who wanted to sent off the elderly with a big bang.

The French team won the Cup in '98. You can only have your 15mins of fame allocated; everything else is someone else's glory.

Again in the TNP, this guy's theory seems spot on - he somehow calculates a number from different aspects of a competing team and predicts whether that team will be a champion then. wonder whether there will be a follow up story on whether that guy won shitloads of money? seems too good to be true...

went for the COLDPLAY concert last monday!! super-stoned after watching the World Cup in the morning and NOT having a morning off to recuperate..got the tickets courtesy of Nokia. the concert was great! i am not an advocate of paying shitloads for concerts but this time round they really rocked. and i was within 10m of Chris Martin!! not the whole show, just that one time he ran the lenght of the hall and climbed up to the box i was seated in. of cos, all the girls turned violent and swamped him. poor guy...



was at the Hilton KL just this week - they have a very very nice pool and pool area...

work-wise (note the priorities here), had the global nokia connections, a number of product launches and a business mobility press briefing here and in KL the weeks gone by. inbetween the usual stuff, numbers crunching, report churning, analysis writing, plan/proposal creation...and also just trying not to get sucked up into the whole "game" machine of A vs. B. i am so tired of that...

couple of pictures from Nokia Connection 2006.



posted by inspirethereal @ 4:18 PM 0 straight, not straightened