Fire 'em up 2

2010-07-21T00:03:00.000-07:00

Hi, it's been a while since I've updated my blog. Well, the nice picture above is a shot from Batu Burok beach, Kuala Terengganu. Yup, I'm now stationed in Kuala Terengganu. I'll be here for a year for teacher's training in IPG Dato' Razali Ismail. I'll be studying how to teach primary school children. Thank God that the government has decided to put more emphasis for primary school now. Previously a neglected segment of education, it is now put in the fore front of education as they realized that children really start learning bad habits early. Hehe!

Anyway, will update on happenings from time to time. Till next. Cheers!

World Cup bore!

2010-06-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

It's the start of the world cup and I'm already bored by the amount of boring games played so far. All the teams played with such lack luster that it's hard to blame anyone for not watching the games. The one game I did watch was the Netherlands match. Boy, was that an amateur game!!! Holland was playing like the totally lost almost all their football skills although they won the game.

I didn't watch the England game but from the score I gather that there wasn't much to shout about too. Mexico who outclassed South Africa strangely only got a draw and France must have been so pathetic that they didn't even score a goal at all. I had more fun watching half of tonight's match between New Zealand and Slovakia.

Speaking of which, why is a country where cattle out number people and the only world cup they ever won was in rugby, qualified for the World Cup. While we, as a nation with multiple football leagues, a fantastic history of qualifying for the Olympics, beaten country like South Korea, having superb training facilities and multi - million football grants can't qualify for it.

I mean, come on, I'm sure our pool of talents must be more than enough to form a squad of 23 players including substitutes. We just need to field 11 great ones to win the matches. Anyways, I really hope that the other matches start picking up otherwise there won't be anybody left to watch the world cup. Meanwhile, I'll go back to sleeping 1st. Haha!!!

MC3

2010-06-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

I was at the Malaysia Cell Church Conference for the past couple of days. It was held in Damansara Utama Methodist Church. I was there actually because of good will of a friend of mine. He couldn't make it, so I just took his place and I was really blessed by this event. This is my first time attending this conference and I was quite surprised by the scale of it. There was about 800++ attendees from 88 churches from at least 5 different countries. This wasn't only from SEA countries but they came from Australia, US and even one from Uganda. Wow! An international Malaysian born conference. It's just amazing.

The speaker was an amazing speaker but unfortunately, I'm not sure why but I fell asleep at about 4 of 6 of his talk. I think I'm partly to blame for the late nights that caused me to sleep in the hall. I shall be purchasing the mp3 to listen to it. The time when I was awake to listen to his sessions, I was quite blown away by his messages. I can't really post all that he has said since I was asleep for more than half of his sessions.

Then there was the workshop. The workshop on ministering to Uni students was more like a forum. It was enjoyable because of that. Everyone got to say something about this oft neglected area of ministry and all of them had the burden to reach out to them. This is probably because FES is stretched too thin and a lot of students have slipped through the cracks.

The workshop on youth work got most of the participants excited about holding Youth Alpha in National Service camps. Apparent, we do get paid for going in there to conduct religious classes. So, come on you all! What are you waiting for?

The last workshop today that I attend was the multimedia. This is the first time I've seen a multimedia departments work description which is one page long and each point is at most only 3 words long! It was interesting to listen to all the work they do. Though I wish they would have given more time to them to do their presentations. It was so rushed that most of them were speed talking! It was an eye opener walking through their AV rooms. The battery of equipment that they have is just astounding! Not to mention mouth watering as I can see from the reaction from the other people. Haha! I think I would be happy with just 20% of their equipment.

I would like to share more but it's kinda late now and I would like to sleep and be awake for the last session tomorrow. So, cheerios for now. Hasta la vista baby!

Beef Bolognese Bamboozle

2010-06-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

Yup! It's spaghetti bolognese night. Brought back the minced beef left over from the stew I cooked the last time. There was about 200grams left. Since I hadn't have any pasta for a couple of weeks now, I decided to make some. The good thing about pasta is that you don't have to worry about it going bad even if it has been opened for sometime. Don't worry, my spaghetti wasn't the year old opened type, just a couple of weeks. Anyways, I whipped out my olive oil, some tomato paste, garlic, onion, pepper and salt and went straight to work.

Firstly lesson, while chopping up onions, don't bend down and smell it. Boy, I just took one whiff and immediately, POW! I was hit by this stinging sensation in my nose and then also my eyes. Really felt like an idiot for doing that and that shows it's been a long time since I've done any cooking. Whatever you do, please keep your face as far away from the onion when you're chopping it. Also, do smell the onion before you peel or cut it up. Hurts less when done that way.

Secondly, make sure the garlic is properly cooked before putting other ingredients in. Otherwise you're gonna get big uncooked chunks of it in your dish. Not that it's a bad thing...if you're single, alone in the house, no date at night, eating pasta while watching Glee. Yeah, don't go down on the garlic if you've got a life. Them breath mints ain't gonna help much.

Thirdly, make sure ALL the meat has been defrosted. Yeah, I was in a bit of a hurry because my stomach was growling in disapproval of being empty and it was time for it's gastronomical exercise. I may have put a 2/3 defrosted meat into the pan. Yeah, a bit chunk of frozen meat right in the middle of the pan. I had to smack that bad boy into pieces in the pan. Can you imagine that? Using a spatula and smacking a chunk of partially frozen meat. Not a pretty sight. Not going to happen again.

Fourth, the mixed vege has gotta be cooked for longer than 1 minute. Raw mixed vege which are still partially frozen should definitely be cooked for more than a minute. Those raw corn, peas and carrots taste weird. Period. Don't do it! I mean it!

Fifthly, finally something I did right! Mixing the tomato paste and water in a bowl before pouring it into the pan. That help solve the issue of the tomato paste not mixing well with the water in the pan. Hehe! Yeehaa!! On the down side, I add too little water and the whole thing ended up being beef bolognese without the sauce. Hehe! But dang, it still works with spaghetti.

Finally, 2oo grams of mince beef is way, way, way too much for 1 person. Being filled to brim and over the sides is no joking matter. I didn't finish the meat. I think I'll have meat sandwich tomorrow.

COOKING WITH GRAY

2010-06-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

Food, it's interesting how one can just experiment with it. I had my hands dipped into cooking for the past few weeks. Quite a mixture of experience. Apparently, cooking pasta is quite a breeze. Get some tomato paste, OO, luncheon meat and mixed vege and presto, 1 serving of pasta coming right up! Tried it twice and no problems at all.

On the other hand, I had major problems with my beef stew. It was a lesson of how important ingredients are. 1stly, I used frozen mince beef instead of beef cubes. Now, normally I would say that this is ok but then after eating it I realized it's very hard to distinguish between the mince beef and garlic and the burnt stuff.

2ndly, never use cheap wine and stout to make your stew. A very big mistake here because the stew will end up tasting as bad as your wine and stout. A big reminder to never use Outback wines from Australia and Royal Stout. From now on it's just Guiness Stout and ermm....I'm not really sure about red wine, anyone can help me out? Hehe!

Thirdly, never ever, ever, ever try to fry anything in a pot with a whole cup of olive oil! It is a very, very big accident waiting to happen. Nearly got myself a big explosion in the kitchen but I did get a whole big mess with the oil just shooting itself out of the pot. I had to clean up the whole mess by myself too. A very big reminder to myself that it is a stupid idea to put that much oil into a pot and set the heat to almost maximum.

Lastly, potato always taste good no matter how bad the whole dish was. Haha! Boy! those potato really taste good. Those sweet, succulent, tender but crunchy potatoes! Hmmmm, so good that I can still taste them. Another big lesson learnt, if you think that you're dish is going to turn out bad, put them potatoes in there. No one, I mean no one is going to suspect anything because the potato is going to save the day. Period!!!

Well, that's all for today. Join me again later for more insipid, gastronomic and maybe some crazy idea for cooking which I've discovered.

Spring festival.

2008-01-30T05:52:00.000-08:00

It's the time of the year again. The Chinese Lunar New Year! It's also time for traveling again. Going back to Kota Bharu, Kelantan again this year. A five hour ride. Driving thru highways, kampung roads and over a man made lake. Wonderful driving trip. Hehe!! Will be using the Wira again. Already been 2 years since I had it. Besides the normal break downs like busted spark plug cables, self disintegrating air condition, punctured tires, ill mannered reverse sensors, nasty yogurt spillage, misleading fuel gauges, squeaky absorbers etc..it works fine...hehe!! National car mah!

Anyway happy chinese new year to all readers out there.

Photos

2008-01-13T06:48:00.000-08:00

Time to show you guys some photos I've taken. Hehe!

1. Clouds/sky in Ipoh.

2. Christmas Tree in church (1)

3. Christmas Tree picture (2)

4. Picture of church in doors.

5. Bonfire of candles!

6. Silent night, holy night!

7. Headstart Ipoh 07/08 - Christine B'day Party, 31/10/07

8. Headstart Ipoh 07/08 - Christmas Party cum Steven B'day Party, 13/12/07
*note: Everyone had their gift. Hehe!!!

9. Headstart Ipoh 07/08 - Nalini and Dorcus B'day Party, 7/1/08
That's all for today.

C-Games!

2008-01-09T08:06:00.000-08:00

Computer games! Now that's something I enjoy playing quite a bit. Last year there were a few that caught my attention for quite a long time. And here they are.

1. Command and Conquer 3 : Tiberium Wars.Fantastic triquel of the original series. With ultra baddie Kane back and also a new faction of aliens called scrin. Interesting some of their units share some similarities with Starcraft 2's Protoss units. Hmm....i wonder. Good news to all is that C&C3 cut scenes are now acted out by real actors. Most of them we would recognize including Michael Ironside (Top Gun, Starship Troopers), Grace Park (New Battlestar Galactica), Jennifer Morrison (House MD), Billy Dee (Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi). Good looking ladies again, woohoo!! The campaign game for the GDI is quite easy but playing NOD is quite a pain. Can't wait for the expansion to this game to be released sometime this year. Mammoth Tank rocks! Yeah!!

2. Supreme Commander
If you want to watch beautifully animated cut scenes, play with dozens of units, manage hundreds of robots, battle with division size armies and sleep for you is an option, then this is your game. The cut scenes are totally awesome and the units have such great variety that you are spoiled for choice. From the quick rush to the mega army strategist, this game caters for all. This is a totally amazing sequel to original Total Annihilation. The qualities of the original has been passed down to this sequel. But the learning curve is pretty steep and the AI won't hesitate to take you out if you let your guard down. Not recommended for players new to RTS. Hehe! Took me more than 20 hours just to reach the final stage on easy mode. And I didn't even finish the game. Don't say I didn't warn you. Hehe!

3. World In Conflict
New RTS on the block. Uses a totally different style of resource management....which is NONE! Great because we can get straight to the fighting! Hehe! Using the premise that in 1989 the Russians, instead of giving up communism because of bankruptcy decides to do a Saddam, ie, invade your neighbour and enrich yourself. The commies take war to Europe and CONUS. Utterly incredible game. Playing with units of this era makes it even more fun. Using Apaches to rip enemy armour up. Summon B52s to carpet bomb stubborn enemy positions. Just total coolness. Quite an easy game to play but tedious because you have to make sure you keep your units alive. No war factory to build blown up M1A1s. But not difficult to finish the missions. At the 10 hour mark I already finish about 75% of game. This game challenges logistic and unit deployment skills. All terrain have impact.

4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
The quadquel of the amazing Call of Duty series. The first 3 was on World War 2 playing the roles of American, British and Russian soldiers fighting in the ETO(European Theatre of Operations). This one is focussed on the War on Terrorism of today, where battlefields have no boundaries. This time you get to play the roles of a SAS operative, a USMC grunt and a small role as USAF SO AC130 gunship gunner. Hehe! Got you drooling yet? Most interesting part I like about the game was the sniper missions. This is where stealth matters more than killing. This is a surprisingly easy game to play. At easy it took me about 4 hours to finish the game, normal about 5 hours + and veteran about 7+. This games is mighty addictive. Even after finishing the game three times I wouldn't mind playing it a few more times. Yes, the route are planned and you can't stray much from the game but the execution can be as different as you wish. You can go at it Rambo style or like a real soldier who works with his squad. HUAH!

That's all for last year's games that really pulled me back into gaming. Also reminded me the need for computer upgrade soon. What game to expect this year? The one and only Starcraft 2. After watching all the previews I'm already planning as to when I should upgrade my comp. Driving me nuts this gaming stuff. Hehe! Well, hope you've enjoyed reading today's post. Hope to input more regularly this year too. Hehe! Till next time. Excelsior.

Why? Why not?

2007-12-18T06:44:00.000-08:00

Why so crazy about cars? I've been asked that question quite a number of times. Very often I ask back why not? It's like how modern art people think that Picasso's stuff is beautiful. Me? I don't get Picasso at all. Cars. Now that's something much easier to understand. It's got to have the looks, power, torque, speed, acceleration, balance, control, madness, speed..oops! Did I already mention speed? My mistake. Hehe!

Just caught up with some reading today on the new Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X. Yup! 10th in the series. Now, if you are like me and have seen a whole lot of movies this year, you'll find a whole lot of really bad sequels(mostly triquels actually!) this year. Disappointing is being too nice for those movies! But this one, the new Evo, is still the same monster that it was with the 1st series. Quick on it's tyres and bursting with confidence at its control. It is not a car of elegance, more like a car you can drive fast and cut corners like butter. It's meant to be driven hard and fast. Forget about interior aesthetics, noise free cabins, carpets and seats with matching colours. That's not what a guy wants in his fast car. He wants to hear the music of the revs. He wants his seats to hold him upright when he takes the corner. He wants just the basic buttons to get the car going coz he won't have anytime to do anything else besides driving. Hehe!

Anyways, aside from cars, I do on occasion watch football too. Like the one that happened this weekend which my team, Liverpool, lost. -,-""" Watched it with my current headstart members. Even had a Christmas dinner with them last week. Will post photo later, with their permission 1st. Hehe!! Anyways, it's good that we meet up for more than just our usual once a month meetings. Get to know and also encourage each other more. Let us also practice our oft forgotten skills of listening. Hehe!

Well, speaking of Christmas, it's just around the corner and this year I sorta feel like I'm in limboland on the present buying part. Haha!! At least that'll save me loads for this year! Haha!! Anyways, to all my fellow readers. Wishing you a blessed Christmas and wonderful New Year. And don't overstuff yourselves. Hohoho!!

Return of the GRAY.....

2007-12-17T05:05:00.000-08:00

I'm back!

I was actually put off because my wordpress blog site had so much trouble and super slow download time that i was put off blogging for quite a while. Well, quite a good excuse huh? Hahaha!!

Well, this year's been quite an exciting year for cars. In Malaysia, we have the release of Viva and Persona on the local front. The Mitsubishi Lancer GT 2.0 was also released. Internationally, we have the new Civic Type R, Audi R8, Aston Martin DBS(yeah, the James Bond one), Bugatti Veyron, Ford Mustang 500, Lamborghini Reventon(pronounced rebenton) etc...

Seems like the industry is going for bigger engines CCs and more power and better electronics and more safety. All the stuff that makes the cars heavier and consume more petrol. Hmm.....wondering how the Kyoto thing will work if car companies keep giving us big cars. Haha! Biodiesel? How are people gonna afford it with the price of palm oil being so high? Best part of it hybrid engines have worse consumption than the current normal engine cars. And last I heard rechargeable lithium batteries still weigh tonnes and not really viable for commercial cars. NGV? Well, I'm sure you all have read bout the recent explosion in the NGV pump in KL.

The way I see it, I don't think the industry is willing to really invest in alternative energy for cars yet. It might interest you to know that the new Nissan GTR is a massive 3.6L engine with 500bhp. Even Japanese cars are getting bigger. Way I see it, it'll probably be another decade or 2 before they will actually get serious about it. Signing out!