The parentals (well, one of them, talks are usually left up to the maternal parental unit for some reason) have decided that I should move back home at the end of the semester 1 exam period. The main reason I've been living away from home is that the place I'm at is much much closer to uni, which is definitely a good thing. It's also close to Decay's place, which is also good it's not why I'm living near him. I'd much rather be living with him, but that won't happen til we're married, it has been decreed ... or something. The whole being told to move back thing has been happening on and off for the last year or so, and it's only now that I'm accepting the decision as pretty much final ... Apparently, I'm worrying the grandma too much coming home late every night. I can't do anything about not worrying her. I get home early, she freaks out. I get home late, she freaks out. I take the rubbish out every week, she complains. I don't take the rubbish out every week, she complains. *sigh* ... I would prefer not to move back, but at the same time I won't really mind (except for having to wake up earlier to get to uni on time ... perhaps potentially less time spent being with Decay ... but we have a whole lifetime together to look forward to ... ). Whether this actually follows through this time, remains to be seen, but whatever happens, we'll cope ... time to network the computers at home, methinks (: Lesson # 35934 : Always look on the bright side of things (:
You have high standards for yourself, and try desperately to live up to them. But when you are unable to reach those goals, you fall into a deep depression. People see you as a brilliant person, yet inside, you are full of self-doubt and fear of failure. You need to set more reasonable goals.
Your song is: About to Crash
Which degree of inner turbulence are you?
This quiz was made by Dionae
Via Em, over at The Gap Into ...
I'm trying to get a lab report done for the multiprocessor cache simulation thing but I dunno, my brain seems unwilling to co-operate ... Dingoblue closes down its internet access, long distance, and local call part of the business today, with the mobile phone part probably to go soon too ... for the first time since 1997, I'll be without dial-up access at home ... which isn't worrying me too much right now, given that I'm typing and this courtesy of Decay's resources ...
I think I'll get another cup of coffee ...
Ok, while I'm trying to get some caffeine to work through my system, I'll go on a mini rant-page... you may get a recipe out of this ...
Ok, pretty much everyone who reads this page knows that I'll be getting married in the near future (once this Uni thing is all done and we've alienated enough relatives... kidding). What I don't get is, why do people suddenly assume I'm on a diet, or I'm making an effort to "watch my weight" just because of the ring I'm wearing on my left ring finger? I've never really made much of an effort to lose/gain weight ever (I think I'd have the willpower...), nor have I really felt the need to. I'm 157.5cm tall, I think I'm somewhere between 48kg and 50kg, and I'm perfectly happy with the way I am right now. I've been fairly lucky in that I've never had to make much of an effort to stay at a healthy enough weight, I can eat pretty much what I want and I won't notice if I do carry a bit more weight. These people who assume I'll be on a diet were also the same people who went on about how little I ate, or how I should put on a bit of weight or whatever ... can I be lost?
Ok, rantage over. See? Mini-rant... now you get your recipe.
Decay and Droidy's Honey-Chilli-Soy Chicken with Cashews and Carrots
- Two Chicken Breasts, no skin
- One smallish-medium Carrot
- A few handfuls of raw Cashew nuts
- Soy Sauce
- Honey
- Chilli Flakes
- Salt, Pepper
- A quarter of a Red Capsicum
- One or two sprigs of Spring Onion
- One small Onion
- Oil for cooking, Olive oil
Grab the chicken breasts. Attempt to de-fat, remove weird bits, whatever. Attempt to chop into bite-sized strips/chunks of relatively even shape. In a bowl (or something), pour in some soy sauce, about a teaspoon or so of honey, a few shakes of chilli flakes, and a dollop of olive oil. I can't tell you exact quantities cos I don't know ... mix it around til the honey's not all in one clump anymore, and give it a taste ... adjust the mix til it tastes right... too sweet? Add more soy sauce. Too salty? Add some more honey and olive oil ... You might want to add a bit of pepper at this point. Put the chicken pieces into a container, and pour the soy sauce and other stuff mixture over it. Give everything a bit of a mix around to get all the chicken bits coated in the goo, and then cover the container and chuck it in the fridge (We left it there overnight. If you're going to have everything in the next hour or so, I think it'll be ok to leave it out to marinate at roomish temperature ...)
While your chicken is marinating, fire up your wok/frypan thing. Wait til it's red hot and happy, then add some oil. Throw in your raw cashews, and turn the heat down. Keep the cashews moving around or they'll burn (and they won't be fun anymore) ... add a bit of salt to the cashews and keep them moving over the heat... When they don't smell raw anymore (give it about 5 or so minutes max) pour them onto a paper towel-lined plate and let them cool down (they'll get crunchy then).
Chop up the onion and spring onion into whatever shape you feel like (we went with little 0.25-0.5cm lengths of spring onion, and baby wedges of onions ... cos I chopped everything up like that for that night), and fry them up a bit, til they're translucent. Take them off the heat. Chop up the carrot into even-ish sized pieces (we went with sticks, see above reasoning, might try rounds next time), and the capsicum into strips about the same size as the carrots... how else (besides the horrible chunks you get in bad asian takeaway, and diced) can you chop up capsicum?
Heat up the wok again, pour in a bit of oil when it's really hot ... Put the chicken and all the remaining marinade into the wok and cook the chicken through. Chuck the onions and spring onions back in, as well as the capsicum and carrot. When the capsicum is starting to look/smell cooked, chuck in the cashew nuts. Give everything a mix-around and put the lot on a plate.
Serves 2 with rice or noodles, or 5 with much other stuff.
Ok, I'd better get other stuff done now. My coffee is very much finished now.
Ummm... because my referrer logs showed someone looking for Curry Risotto, I'll post something else instead...
Decay and Droidy's Stir Fry Vegies with Sliced Omelette and Noodles
- One small-medium carrot
- Half a small red capsicum
- A couple of small handfuls of green beans
- One small onion
- One sprig of spring onion
- Two eggs
- Soy Sauce
- Sesame Oil (I don't know if we put any in last Saturday...)
- Olive Oil, Vegetable Oil for cooking
- Lemongrass and Chilli spice
- Salt and Pepper or whatever, to taste
In a bowl, crack open the two eggs, add a bit of salt, pepper, and lemongrass and chilli spice (for each egg, one grind of salt, two of pepper, and a shake of the spice... whatever, to taste, find your own spice of choice... it could've been chilli flakes) then beat them up. Put some water on the boil at some stage here. Give the frypan/wok a bit of a quick clean, turn the heat on again, chuck a bit more oil in and omelette away (don't worry if it breaks or looks funny)... When the omelette's all done, chuck it on a plate and slice it up (now you know why it didn't matter (: ).
Fire up the frypan/wok again, and chuck in the carrots, capsicum and beans ... while they're happily sizzling away, put some of that boiling water into a saucepan and get that bubbling nicely. Put a dash of soy sauce into the wok/frypan with the vegies, and when they look mostly done, chuck the onions/spring onions back in, and chuck a couple of rounds of dried noodles (Found in packs of about 8 rounds in asian food groceries, 2 minute noodles would probably work the same way) into the boiling water. When they're done (about 2 minutes once the water gets back to boiling happily), drain them and then throw them into the wok too ... add the chopped up omelette, and a bit more soy sauce and mix everything up ... Chuck the whole lot onto a plate of appropriate size, and voila, Bob's your aunty's live-in lover (:
Serves 2 as a complete dinner, or 5 with the addition of other things ... recipes for those things to follow...
Ok, I better get to doing all the stuff I said I had to do today... it'll get me moving, and maybe give me a chance to warm up ... back later.
Decay and I did the quick trip to Chadstone this afternoon, because I knew he was going to pick up the H2G2 DVD I mentioned a few posts back ... well once we found out it had been released in Australia ... other items in the loot were The Breeders new album, Title TK, and the latest effort (a soundtrack for About A Boy) by Badly Drawn Boy ...
Ok time for dinner with the parentals, plural ...
Trivia night was much fun last night ... we ended up bringing some blank CDs as a prize ... and then we won them back at the end of the night ... That's convenient (: Overall we came third, but managed to somehow win heaps of chocolate in the raffle draws and between-round games ... we had B, Em and Jules over for dinner beforehand ... didn't kill anyone with our cooking (that would be a good thing) ...
Hmmm... better get away from the computer now ...
Via zannah, how about some Purple Carrots ?
Yes, It's a bright and shiny Saturday, except it's cold... I have restless need to work but can't think type feelings again ... Listening to DJ Shadow at the moment ... there's some Radiohead, Cure, Coldplay, Badly Drawn Boy, and Travis to follow ...
- What's the last vivid dream that you remember having?
That would be this morning ... It had something to do with me driving in the city trying to find a car park ... I turn into one undergound car parking area, then decide I don't want to go into that one, and have to do some sort of really weird three-point turn to get back out again, on a really steep slope heading down towards the carpark from the entrance... the staffers in the money collection booth got out and helped push the car so that it pointed in the right position to get out ...
Then I parked the car on the side of the road (think China town, Little Bourke Street in Melbourne kind of area), got out and started looking for a different carpark, on foot. Then I think, hang on, I left my wallet in the car, how can I pay for parking without money? I go back, get my handbag, and walk off again ... Then I go, hang on, I'm looking for a carpark, on foot ... I go back to the car, get in and drive off ... I think I woke up at this point, only to want to fall back asleep cos my bed was really comfy and warm this morning, except for the weird angle my neck was at...
- Do you have any recurring dreams?
See next question ... I don't tend to remember lots of my dreams, although I've been remembering a few lately ...
- What's the scariest nightmare you've ever had?
I had this dream a couple of times, where I was running around stabbing lots of my friends in the middle of the night while we were running around in an area that had train lines and bushland and a lake or something ... it's been a long time since I last had that dream. It wasn't actually scary while I was having this dream, it felt quite normal to be going around stabbing everyone I knew (and some I didn't), and it wasn't until I woke up and thought about the dream i just had that I went ... hang on ...Scary dream? The one about digging in the sand at some deserted beach, and finding fresh brains, or brain looking things that looked all wormy and wriggly and glistening ...
- Have you ever written your dreams down or considered it? Why or why not?
I've written a few down, sometimes they make good entries (: On the most part I don't, because I don't remember, and things are lost in the telling ...
- Have you ever had a lucid dream? What did you do in it?
I had a dream where I was reading my pillow, and I could turn the pages of my pillow ... it was a really interesting pillow to read too ... But I have no idea what the pillow was on about ...
Today was much fun </sarcasm>... I actually managed to do my prac and get a decent amount of marks ... I did have backup though, but I didn't use it ... As much as collaboration appears to be a long-running tradition in the rite of passage through University, I'd much rather get a mediocre mark content in the fact that I did the work myself and have some understanding of what's going on, than to blindly copy and be clueless. After today's prac, the pressure has been taken off a bit with having to get at least 50% over the semester in the pracs ... This would be a good thing, because there's a fair chance that the last lab is going to die a horrible death given that it's in the last week, and I have three exams in the first week ...
While I'm posting (and sipping on coffee, nibbling on Wasabi Green Peas), have some screen savers ...
Damn, out of caffeine ... Back later to do some marinading and chopping up of vegetabley things so that tomorrow can just be a case of throwing things together and hoping it works ... Sounds good to me.
Ok, it's cold... the windows in my room have frosted up ...
*sigh* ... better get to uni ... must get lab finished... in three cases ... permission to freak out?
H2G2 DVDness!
Why do Tuesdays make me feel so tired? Why doesn't coffee work anymore?
It's another Monday in the whole scheme of things, and I'm attempting to sit still and do some work ... except that my brain wants to run off in all sorts of directions, and my arms and legs want to be up and doing something that my brain can't quite decide what it is they should be doing ... I have my books sitting here waiting impatiently to be absorbed, but there's something stopping me ... the washing's been done, it's tumbling itself around to dry, and the kitchen's mostly in order, there shouldn't be anything much else for restless brain to contemplate doing except for study ...
It's been a weekend... lots of little niggles have added up to an avalanche of frustrations, a restlessness mostly calmed by Decay's presence ... but with a brain on overload it's difficult to keep in focus the little things that make this life worth being ... somehow need to make it through the remaining 3 semesters of uni, without driving anyone up the wall ...
I'm sort of hoping that it might rain tonight, so that I might not have to spend $5.00 to play tennis tonight ... I know $5.00 doesn't seem like much, but May's not been a particularly good month in the scheme of money management, stuff kept happening, and stuff needs money to pay for it ... I don't mind -- I'd much rather spend my money on others before spending it on myself -- but still, I'd like to have saved a little more money this month... *sigh* ... perhaps next month it'll be better?
Ok, I'll get back to doing whatever it was I should be doing now ... and leave you with a story ... *giggle*
It's Trivia Night next Saturday night ...
For those looking to stuff their brains with useless facts, go for your life...
I think I'll stop now ...
Just because I can:
from A Boy and His Computer, some Church Signs, real live ones ... which reminds me of the time when Decay and I passed one of these signs on the way back home ... it said something about how "Body Piercing Saved My Life" ... which is also what Dennis Rodman apparently said at one point? Or was that someone else? I don't remember...
Next up: the 5k Competition is back again, after slight delays ... from the 2000 competition, 3D Tetris, blocks, from 2001, a little scribbling pad with different stampy things too ...
Third: If you're in need of something to do, try here to do stuff others outlined for others to do ... create a work of art !
I think I need another cup of hot beverage ...
From my referrer logs:
singapore price of puppies per pound
Were they going googlewhacking ?
Time to go shopping ... back perhaps later? Much perl goodness happening today...
The Friday Five...
- What shampoo do you use?
Um.... at the moment? It's Sunsilk, not because of their ad campaign involving Joh Bailey, probably cos I like the smell and also because it hasn't made my hair do weird things yet... It'll change the next time I run out...
- Do you use conditioner? What kind?
Whatever the matching conditioner is for the shampoo above.
- When was the last time you got your hair cut?
End of January this year. I'm trying to grow it out, partly cos I don't have the money to have a hair cut right now, and partly so that there might be enough hair to do something with at the end of next year... then again I might just cut it all off...
- What styling products do you use?
Currently I'm using KMS Silker 2-in-1 shaping creme so that my hair doesn't have a million flyaways, when my hair was shorter, I used to spike it up with KMS Hair Play molding paste because it gave enough hold without going rock hard and yuk ... they're a bit expensive to use heaps though ... but they do go a long way ...
- What's your worst hair-related experience?
Do you count the bad perm, or the bad blow wave?
Yep ... that's enough for now ...
You are 30% evil! [?]
You're still on the good side of 50%, but you're gaining on it. You're not as good as you should be, but you're good ALMOST all of the time. There's only an occasional time when evil takes over you, but when it does...
I handed in two reports this afternoon. The wave of relief I'm supposed to be feeling isn't hitting ... I look half-asleep, because I think I have an infected eyelash base or something ... I'll take a quick nap or something, then get to starting another lab... *shriek!* It's week 11 next week ...
Well, Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones happened last night/this morning... It started screening half an hour after the ticketed time, apparently due to technical problems ... there was much hoonage and idiotage, they yelled and generally made themselves heard in obnoxious ways ... However, I'll leave the reviewage til later, over there ... deal?
I think it's time I got out of the house... I'm really struggling to find the motivation to do so ...
Ok, I had to go look it up ... For those who needed to know, St Christopher is the patron saint of Automobiles, Bachelors, Bus Drivers, Travelling Hazards, Motorists, Porters, Travel and Travellers, Truck Drivers, archers, boatmen, floods, fruit dealers, fullers, hailstorms, holy death, mariners, Rab Croatia, sailors, storms, sudden death, taxi drivers, toothache, and watermen. And, apparently, St Isidore of Seville is the patron saint of the Internet, as well as computer technicians, computer users, computers, schoolchildren, and students. I leave looking up interesting/amusing/obscure links to the reader as an exercise in utilising Google.
Much domesticated happenings going on this morning... I've taken the opportunity to hand-wash some stuff I don't trust the grandma to try ... in the meantime, the dishes have been done, loads of washing are sorted and in waiting, while other washing is out on the line to dry ... all without grandma looking over my shoulder telling me I'm doing something wrong ... Ooh the fishies have awoken ... little blue tetra is still alive ... I think I should get something to eat lunch-wise ...
Meanwhile, peruse the papal list... speaking of popes, the current one's on the lookout for a patron saint of the internet ... suggestions?
Last night, while attempting to get the cache simulation happy and working, Decay and I watched Memento ... weird ... strange... great mind-screw...
Saturday night, sitting here post yummy dinner and doing work while Decay is off shooting things on the other computer ... it's just nice to be able to be here and exist... makes me wish weekends could be so much longer ... I'd get more work done, and I'd be a fair bit less freaked out ? If I could remove the guilt trip associated with not turning up to lectures, I could just not turn up and study in my own time ... but I can't do that ... I might miss something ...
Meanwhile, I'll get back to programming ... my brain's been out of whack lately ... can't seem to get my head around anything much ... Mmm ... cache simulation ... head over to Decay's page for a better quality of diversion ...
Being itchy is not a good way to react. I can't actually do anything work-wise when my back goes into oversensitive mode ... I might actually get more done if my reaction was say, insomnia, or a feverish get busy and study type thing ... but being itchy, without leaving any trace that there is anything to be itchy about?
In other news, I thought this was pretty kewl ... you hear a tune, but don't know who sings it or what it's called or anything ... you ring a number, it'll listen and tell you what the song is ...
Meanwhile, I should scoot. I've kidnapped wasted the old laptop to work on while I can't get a seat in a computer lab... And I've thought of something to get for Mother's Day ... oh joy.
Dinner @ Decay's place tonight ... it ended up being noodles and dumplings in chicken soup and green things (Choy Sum, for those who needed to know) with oyster sauce drizzled over them ...
Ok, time to go, much work to be done...
I was talking to some uni friends this morning about computer games and stuff... I managed to get someone else hooked on playing Dungeon Siege ... I mentioned that someone had worked out how to finish Myst in under 10 minutes ... yeah, so bumping into my friends pretty much meant all thoughts of being conscientious student and doing a bit of study in the three hour break didn't actually happen ... Ahh well... it was nice to catch up with everyone though ... even though I'm actually seeing them more often this semester than I have in a long time ...
Ok, time to finish off that matrix multiply thingy before I get garotted tomorrow morning ...
It's Monday morning, and I'm wondering what on earth I'm trying to do with this university so-called education ... how I'm going to finish, where it's going to take me ... dinner last night with relatives, no non-relateds (ie Decay and Ian weren't there), for a meal that monks would climb walls to taste ... the Cantonese have a way with their metaphors or descriptiony things, or whatever ... the next dinner thing has been set tentatively for 9th June, which means a few of us won't be there due to impending exams ... the maternal parental unit sort of forgot to check that point before she announced the date she's claimed as hers ... *oops* ...
I am attempting not to have wedding on the brain ... these will NOT be the vows for our wedding ceremony ...
I shall get to accomplishing something for today now ...
Another week flys by me and I have no idea where all the time went ... exams are looming, but I'm being lulled into a false sense of security thinking that everything will be all right once the exams are over ... it won't happen like that unless I actually get studying properly ...
AAUUGHH... lately I've been getting an incredibly itchy back for no reason that we can work out, other than probably stress... if anyone's got a way for me to de-stress, un-itch, and still study, please tell me, before I get driven any more insane ...
For those of you who notice stuff, I fixed the screwed redirector link to the timetable page in the old layout ... and I added a link to globe of blogs...
ok, enough ... being driven insane ...