'Instant' Tiramisu / Happy Birthday Dad

Happy Birthday Dad :D

Couldn't celebrate dad's birthday last year cuz my ITP was starting the very next day, so I made it a point to be at home this year (instead of lingering around in KL doing...well..nothing :P ). More pics and recipe after the jump!

GITS-like technology might actually be possible

Those of you who know me know I'm a huge fan of Ghost in the Shell (QJ's prolly sick of me blabbering bout it) and its futuristic ideas of what that would technology do to humans and machines. The idea they had...is goddamned awesome. I can't stop loving the show. And I can't ever get bored of re-watching the series...AND the show. (my GITS collection eats up 25Gb of my HDD)

Sometimes, my friends would share some of their good reads on Facebook...like the one about curing cancer using bicarbonate soda, NASA 'shooting' the moon to verify if there's really water in the Moon, and recently..this. An article about research done make an injured mouse walk again. Now that may sound very boring and rather...unimpressive.. but what's really amazing is how they did it. Using light and algae to control brain activity with great precision, and most importantly, without any side effect. The research aims to find a cure for Parkinson's that will not have side effect on the patients.

What's even more amazing is the technology behind this. Optogenetics have huge potential.

By injecting mice neurons with yet another gene, one that makes cells glow green when they fire, researchers are monitoring neural activity through the same fiber-optic cable that delivers the light. The cable becomes a lens. It makes it possible to “write” to an area of the brain and “read” from it at the same time: two-way traffic.

This two-way traffic could lead to human-machine fusion. Imagine having a prosthetic arm that not only enables you to grip and touch objects, you can actually feel, sense heat and gather information of the object you touch. I can't help thinking of the possibility of cyborgization in the future, just like in GITS.

...wow :D

Soya Bean Milk

Towards the end of my holidays spent at 391D, I was chatting with my sis when she told me she just made soya bean milk the night before. Lately, I've been loving soya bean milk quite a bit. Would buy them whenever I go pasar malam (which is sadly, not often enough) so when she said it was really easy to make them, I got curious and ventured out to buy some 'yellow beans'.

I'm baaaaccckkkk!!

Well..actually I've been back a few days...just without net. And in those few days...well....I slept...a lot. Gosh when I'm bored I just went to the couch..and just slept. Sisters came back during the weekend too and they did just about the same thing. LOL. Terrible people, us ;P ...well...we did make cakes tho. With some nice deco. I'll post some pics some other day. Don't have my cam with me now and I think mum took her cam into her room already...dang. Ah well.. ;P

So the TM contractors finally came around today to install the damned net...and yey! Felt so good to have (decent) net back. Dialup sucks. Period. (yeah i can hear gasps and you people saying OMG dialup still exists?...) Now I can download contents for my DS too since its wireless ;P. Siblings will be happy when they're back. That's for sure.

Anyways....what's up? Nothing much really. An ex-classmate got married and didn't tell us (ok fine the kenduri's next year but STILL!!! Gosh people...with facebook and everything around and we still have to find out bout things after they happen from other ppl)...Fluffy's all fluffed up again (she had to have multiple haircuts previously thanks to her being allergic to everything else but Salmon and Vege flavored dog food...and since that flavour's sooo bloody hard to find, she's eating CAT food now. HAHAHA)...nieces are driving me NUTS. One won't let anyone else carry her when the mum or my aunt's around else she'll start crying really really loudly...the other one's being awfully stubborn and spoiled. You'll have to practically chase her around the house to feed her everyday, and if anyone doesn't do anything HER way...she'll throw a tantrum and start to cry. If you ask her to stop crying...she'll cry even louder. Great. Threaten to beat her, she'll just say OK. She hasn't kena the cane yet. Back in my (and I'm sure MANY other of my friends as well as my siblings) days...the very sound of the cane's whipping, and we'd run and hide in the corner. Just yesterday, the baby sister got whacked cuz she panicked when the baby got too near the picture puzzle she was playing...then later on she bite the baby's thumb for no apparent reason, making the baby cry her lungs out for a few minutes.

All that noise+blaring tv+the adults scolding the kids...is kinda crazy change compared to QJ's music spamming I had back in Melaka. Thankfully the stupid Fluffy don't bark much. Else...I think I'd just bury myself in the bed when it happens. Hmmm now that I think of it, maybe that's why I like to stay up late even at home. Bah alasan....hahaha ;P .....WELL....the kids are cute when...well....when they're not doing all the above. At least the youngest one doesn't cry when she sees me (like when she sees my second sister...wakakakaa)...and the eldest one can ask some pretty smartass questions (and say some pretty smartass things)...she will suddenly remember that my eldest sis did not follow them to Genting the other day and ask my sister "Why didn't you follow us to Genting that day?" out of the blue...then other times she will be excited to go back home cuz her two aunts will be back home to play with her...when we ask her "when bout the other aunt?" ...she will say "she won't be back..she always work work work..." .....which makes us go /facepalm. Gee...

Neways...nuff bout kids. What else have I been doing? Haven't cooked much (aside from the sucky maggi I had yesterday) cuz...I don't have to. And my parent's don't really fancy western food so...I don't really feel like making them. The fact that I keep waking up 2pm in the evening, doesn't really help either. Well, lets see if I can pull off a simplified Tiramisu this coming weekend for Dad's birthday. :D

I've been watching my stash of movies tho. Didn't watch much while I was in Melaka cuz I've always been watching whatever QJ downloads (bleh now I have to download my own stuff...x.x ) ...and one of the gems I found in my HDD is Sound of Music. It was sooooooooo niceeeeee! :D ...see if I'll manage to finish the post about it (I'm lazy..hee!). And the chinese channel on Astro was screening Justice Bao that I remember watching with my grandma about 15 years ago! (I remember cuz his bodyguard is sooooooooooo cute! XD Grandma had a picture with the actor...I...dunno why :D )...my whole family's glued to it now and I don't mind. Really really nice show. Don't mind marathoning it if I had it in my HDD (bet it'll be a pain to find tho...me being a banana and all) ....so other that the 2 classics, I'm slowly milling thru my stash of movies (partly cuz I need to clear some space cuz the damn external is running out of space...again).

That's ..just about it. I think. Still owe QJ some unfinished projects (eek forgot!) so I guess I'll be busy tmr ;P

Nites (morning) peeps!

Not so away afterall

/peeks from the peejay

Guess I won't be so away afterall. Hee...well what can I say, its great having neighbours who are so kind enough to share their WiFi. Sharing is caring, rightttt??? (Hey its not our fault they didn't lock their WiFi.... :P ...have been using it sinct my ITP last year..hee!)

aaannnddddd...mum told me she suscribed to streamyx just the other day cuz the promotion at Tesco there offered the WiFi combo package mum wanted and they were having the installation AND activation fee waived...so mum bit the bait and hopefully in less than a week's time I'll have net again...hee! Lets just hope the PC at home doesn't crashes often... ;P


And to all my Indian friends out there...I'd like to wish you all...Happy Deepavali :D (yey for free food for me ;P)

Away

I'll be away for awhile...detouring to KL for a day or two before heading back to SP...without my PC. Yeah leaving teh PC here in Mlk for awhile...gonna get my parents to come down and pick stuffs up later (mum wants to come here shopping too..uh....)...

So...I'll be away from blogging for awhile..until I get broadband installed at home (or if I get to leech some net using sis' laptop while I'm at her place...hehehehe)

Baked Macaroni Cheese

Khurshid made mac and cheese for his family for Iftar quite some time ago...and it made me wanna make something similar. Went scour kuali.com and found something which is rather easy to make.

Recipe after the jump

Fish Chips with Beer Batter

I looooovvvveeee fish chips but some restaurants can really screw up the fish chips that it makes me think twice before ordering. My sis had tempted me before with beer batter fish chips somewhere in Penang and it made me crave for it ever since. Figured it shouldn't be too hard to do, since I've fried fish chips before using Jusco's tenpura flour. So I googled for the recipe and found one from Videojug. Here's what I came up with...

Bread Pudding

We bought quite a bit of big loaves of bread this semester, and as a result, there's always 1-2 slices left when it expires. What I'd do is, check for mold, and if its clean, toss it into the freezer.

Figure since semester break is approaching, I'd do something with the bread before having to toss them all out to the garbage truck. Decided to make bread pudding, something Amran made quite some time ago (and made us think of it long after it was finished).

Bread pudding: simple way to getting rid of those old breads.

The end of sem 'pick-a-kitteh' syndrome.

This will be the first thing you'll see in the morning, should you bela this cat. ROFL.

New Layout!

It's about time I dish out something new :D http://volvoxx.blogspot.com  has been using the last theme for far too long. 2 years if I'm not mistaken :P. I love the theme to bits. If it wasn't for the fact I couldn't fully utilize blogger's new template widgets and tools, I wouldn't have bothered. The ajax menu was really nice and I like its simplicity. It was clean and neat, just what I liked.

I loved the last theme so much, many of the new themes were not nice enough for me to want to replace the template...until I found this one. Zinmag Primus. Looks too good to ignore. Took me awhile to fiddle with the template settings but it was worth it. Still got a few stuff to fix tho but I'll leave that for tomorrow. If you guys find any buggy stuff, do let me know ;P

Happy Mooncake Festival

I've always like it during the Mooncake Festival. What's there not to like? Delicious mooncake to eat (free, of course, since parent's buy and gifts from relatives), nice mooncake boxes for collection (haha!) and nice pretty lanterns to play with!

FYP - Done

Finally, fully done with the whole damn thing. From trying to not get lost in Facebook Platform, planning, coding, to report bullshitting writing, soft cover, kill myself finding places that wanna do hardcover in the midst of Raya holidays....with the dateline looming closer and moderator not replying my email to give me the green lights to proceed with the hardcover binding....


Finally, its done ;3

Never thought it'd feel so good to hold it in my own hands. So...satisfying!