Yorkshire Pudding

Yorkshire pudding is a dish that originated in Yorkshire but attained wider popularity. It is made from batter and most often served with roast beef, chicken, or any meal in which there is gravy served with it, or on its own. Gravy is often served alongside. It is often claimed that the purpose of the dish was to provide a cheap way to fill the diners - the Yorkshire pudding being much cheaper than the other constituents of the meal - thus stretching a lesser amount of the more expensive ingredients as the Yorkshire pudding was traditionally served first. (Source: Wikipedia)

Well, I guess it serves a similar purpose to rice or potatoes but to my surprise, they actually taste quite nice! Here is the recipe which I used to prepare ours last night :) The more complicated part was to get our roast beef done, which nearly cought fire in our oven hehe!

We had the puddings with roast beef, served with creamy mashed potatoes and steamed cauliflower with tons of gravy....yum!!!

Big Gun No Brain

Video game turned movie or movie turned video game, I couldn't really think of any truely successful incarnations except may be Resident Evil and Tomb Raider. Max Payne is one of the latest video game turned movie title that hit our big screen lately.

I am a big fan of Max Payne game series and the use of "bullet-time" in the gameplay was nothing short of revolutionary at the time! This was also one of the main reason why I had convinced Jin to watch it with me a couple days ago. To cut a long story short, the movie definitely wasn't worth any cents of your hard earned $15 and the 100mins in life that you will never get back!

The movie is a little "too dark" to my taste and all the characters inside, including Max Payne have failed to connect with the audience in my opinion. At the end, I couldn't care less about what actually happened to any of them. The movie is not only lack of substance but also blatantly boring right through till the end.

The plot is fairly simple, Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) is cop who is still trying to get over the death of his wife and baby while investigating several murders, while Mona Sax (Mila Kunis) costars as an assassin desperate for her own revenge of her sister. However, it's not all bad, the movie still manages to pull out some rather impressive visual effects and mindless big gun fires!

My advice - safe the $15 bucks. If you haven't played the game before, go and get yourself a copy of Max Payne or Max Payne 2 which should only cost you a couple of dollars by now :)

Back to Rottnest

With only less than 2 weeks to go before Yeong heads back to Korea, we thought it would only be fair enough that we showed her to our only island escape paradise in Perth, the Rottnest Island :)

We went there on last Saturday by catching the Rottness Express ferry off C Shed at Fremantle Port. The day started really cloudy and managed to spit a little, but as the day progressed, it turned out to be a fantastic day on the island with really mild temperature and plenty of refreshing sea breeze.

However it's not all fun and games, Yeong somehow managed to drop her prescription glasses into the ocean and lost them! So the rest of the day, she would just have to be content with her non-prescription sunnies :)

Of course, there are only a few ways you can get around to explore the island and in my opinion, the best way will be on the bikes. So we rented a bike each as soon as we arrived on the island in the morning. However, the only down side of riding these rental bikes is the "pain in the arse" at the end of the day - for those who have been there and done that would know exactly what I meant LOL! For me, it was the fifth time I have been through this and every single time it nearly killed me :)

Through camera lens

Ever wonder why sometimes photos look different from realities? Well, I am not talking about the result of acne/mole touch up using PS but through perspective distortion by your camera lens. The distortion is most apparent if the object being photographed is placed too close a wide-angle lens. This is also the very reason why wide angle lenses and long telephoto lenses do not make ideal portrait lenses. Objects closer to wide-angle lens will almost always appear larger and disproportionate to the rest of the objects away from the lens (big nose??). In contrary, objects will always appear a bit flatter if a really long telephoto lens is used. Personally, I find that my 100mm macro lens is a very capable portrait lens and I will keep saving up money for my dream portrait lens, Canon 85mm f/1.2L :)

Public Art

Found this a few weeks ago behind my workplace :)

School holiday = trouble time

Want to share some "art" work on my fence with all of you. Haven't these idiots got better things to do?

Six months later - another new car :)

Ok Ok...we are now officially broke but we are happy :) Introduce the new car for Jin, a Ford Focus 2.0 with all the bells and whistles such as alloy wheels, cruise control, trip computer, semi-automatic transmission, electric everything and leather-clad steering wheel. We traded in her aging Holden Barina which we bought about 2 years ago from the City Holden. That Barina was a total nightmare in the last 6 months and had gone through one repair after another, costing us in excess of $2k in total. Saying that, we did not just buy a cheap second off the street, it was a $11k car we bought from a reputable Holden dealer and for that price, you would expect to get at least a few more years out of it right? WRONG! In fact, way wrong! In the end, it's just another lemon from Holden (anything new?).

Anyway, gone is the trouble :) Jin is overjoyed with her new car and with 107kw of power at her disposure, it's a far cry from a useless and gutless 1.4 thrash in the Barina. The car is smooth to drive and the 4 speed semi-automatic works flawlessly in peak hour city traffic as well as on the freeway. We got the car from John Hughes Park Ford in Victoria Park and was delivered this morning. The staff at the dealer are really friendly and helpful and purchasing the Focus from them was a delightful experience. So there you go, if you are looking to upgrade to a new Ford, head down to Park Ford and you will know what I mean.

Gudget of the Month!

From my previous post, I explained about my new upgraded desktop computer. But do you ever think about what are you going to do with all those old obsolete parts each time you upgrade your PC? In my case, they are still perfectly working and reasonably capable E6400 Intel chip and mobo. Well, I have built myself a fully function HTPC in our bedroom :)) It's main function is not really for movie watching but more like for listening to music while surfing the net in my doona on Sunday morning hehe! A typical remote control for a media PC will not even come close to what a keyboard and mouse combo is capable of.

This is when my gudget of the month comes in! A diNovo Mini by Logitech.

This little keyboard remote control is an truely amazing piece of technology! The diNovo Mini 's sleek construction, functional design and ease of use is extraordinary. And because it uses Bluetooth technology, it also has an amazing working range of more than 9m!

The whole keypad is no bigger than the size of my palm but it has a fully functional keyboard and a touchpad built in! And this is more than enough to control a fully fletched PC from the comfort of your sofa or in my case, my bed :)

It comes with a rechargable battery much like your mobile phone. Once fully charged, it will last for a least a month or so, or at least what they claim to last. So...if you are tired of your gigantic keyboard and mouse combo with limited range, then it's time to get yourself one of these little babies, you will not be dissappointed!

A brief look back

Sorry about the lack of updates lately, life goes on as usual (and sucks at time)... I have not been taking photos for a while now and hence, sort of "retired" from the Flickr at the moment. I am still toying with the ideas purchasing a second camera body and the Canon 50mm f1.4 prime lens though. However, at the moment, we have to start saving up money for another new car for Jin as her Holden Barina is a little long in tooth.... c'mon Sat Lotto!!!

I have upgraded my old computer E6400 to a better budget quadcore photoshop/gaming rig :)

Q9450@3.0Ghz (fsb375,vcore1.23) + P5kpro + Zalman CNPS7700
Corsair XMS2 6400C4 @1000mhz 4-4-4-12 (4x1Gb)
ATI HD3870 512MbDDR4(820/1230)

Although far from the "extreme" version for those deep pocket nerds, this Q9450 really pack a punch and everything seems to work a whole lot faster and smoother.

Completed Crysis on the above system, although the framerate with all settings maxed out are barely playable still! Crysis is the only game I have purchased since Neverwinter Nights 2 earlier last year and I must say, it is one of the best looking game I have ever seen and played! So there you go, if you only buy one game per year, this is the one to get if you haven't already done so....but you will have to make sure your gaming rig can handle it :)

Seen Iron Man at the movie last Tuesday...well, it's not as good as I would hope for but may be my expectation was too high after reading all the raving reviews on the net. However, I truely enjoyed watching the Iron Man character portrayed by the alter ego and ultra sarcastic Downey jr. The casts were excellent! However, Transformer is still my favourite :)

Last but not least, cought a nasty cold couple days ago and I am still as sick as a dog right now....

New Ikea Super Store!

Really, before I begin, this is not about any IKEA promotion so please don't worry LOL! A good buddy of mine, Waynus mentioned once in his blog that one of his friend is afraid of mimes and apparently there was one in the new IKEA store. So we decided to check it out yesterday morning, which was indeed a beautiful morning until we got there at the store.

Getting there was a breeze from the Mitchell Freeway, you won't miss the imposing sign of IKEA on the Cedric Street exit. This gargantuan superstore don't get the title as the biggest store in the southern hemisphere for nothing, it is huge indeed...but again...to get that sort of title in the southern hemisphere is not entirely that hard anyway :)

To find a parking spot in a sea of cars was a daunting experience, so I decided to park on the giant uncovered parking field next to the store, which was covered with soft yellow sands. Even then, the makeshift parking was pretty much full! So, as you have probably guessed, my poor Toyota was bogged down before we even started our "adventure". After I tried digging the front wheels out with my four paws to no avail, we decided to beg for help from the ever so helpful IKEA staffs.

After running up and down, one of the IKEA staff said to us: "that parking area is NOT an IKEA's property, so it is not our responsibility that your car is bogged down there". Inside of me, I was fuming but I managed to ignore what he said because, after all, I was the one buried in deep shit and in need of help at the time. What are we? I thought we are loyal IKEA's customers and they are supposed to look after their patrons? After all, nearly 15-20% of our bits and pieces at home sport the IKEA tags!

Luckily one of the more helpful staff agreed to sacrifice a few minutes of his time and give us a hand. However, after a few trials, the nose of my car was officially resting on the dirt as the front wheels frantically scratched for traction (traction control I heard?) I phoned RAC (Royal Automobile Club) of which I was a member for the past 15 years I was driving but they doubted their mechanics were going get me out of this sticky situation, so they suggested I call a tow truck. Luckily, while we were their, another guy rocked up in his great Holden Ute and his rear shinny allow wheels were seriously bogged behind us as well. Tell you what?! It's nice to have a "mate" in the same sticky situation LOL!

As our hope and patience were running thin, he flagged down a guy in his Toyota landcruiser who, thanks heaven, was able to give us a much needed pulling hand! I should have asked for your name but if you ever come across my blog, you have my sincere thank you and I will forever remember you as our saviour!! ....and long live Toyota landcruiser!!

To IKEA!! Your reputation is merely saved by one of your more helpful staff! Perhaps you should erect a sign near the entrance of that parking area "for 4WD only or enter at your own peril"! Perhaps you should build the biggest proper carpark in the southern hemisphere. Perhaps you should train their staffs to be more reasonable and helpful.

Perhaps...we should have gone to FREEDOM instead! One thing for sure, we won't be going back to the store in a hurry!