Simplicity

If you’re one of my few feed subscribers, please be informed that I’ve transferred my blog from cheeyi.net to cheeyi.com, so cheeyi.net will redirect to cheeyi.com, but the .net domain will still be here, so you can still click my Sponsors if you want! Thank you.

Let all the rumors stop! After what seemed like ages, and countless articles, speculations and flame wars from the rumor mill, it’s finally here.

In case you haven’t noticed, the Calendar icon shows 4th (Tuesday) – October 4th is a Tuesday. The clock shows 10am – 10.00am Pacific Time. The Phone icon… I don’t know, maybe only one iPhone will be announced? 

Nobody knows for sure if it’s the iPhone 4S or 5 yet, let’s just wait and see (because that’s the only thing we can do right now).

The new iPhone will probably have these new features. And I haven’t posted anything about tech in a while, so you can probably feel the excitement I’m feeling right now.

Free Hugs

The INTI Humanities Club members are giving away free hugs to everyone at the campus’s second floor this whole week so don’t be shy (because most people were shy when approached by them during the first day yesterday), and here are pictures of the funny signs held by the members throughout the activity.

I especially like this two because they look really funny and the color combination is nice

And the person who made all these signs is…

iPad Cooking

Zen-Zi’s mum just bought an iPad 2 and this is actually the first time I’ve really seen someone cook using instructions from a dedicated iPad app. She used the Jamie’s Recipes app which contains recipes from celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.

The screenshot above is a file photo from iTunes, not the one her mum cooked, it’s actually to the left of the center image.

It’s spaghetti cooked with cheese, zucchini and Italian sausages (GOTTA LOVE THESE!). The pictures don’t do it justice, and I have no idea why the colors turned out to be not so good, but if you have an iPad, then the app is highly recommended.

Finally got my YES Huddle few days ago after they informed me that I was one of the consolation prize winners for the iPad Feedback Contest, the deadline to collect the prizes from their office is 16th September. I had to drive down to their HQ near the airport just to collect it but well, it’s worth the time.

Only the Huddle device itself was included though, so I still have to pay to use it.

I heard from a few friends that the upload/download speed is superb, any thoughts?

These are not my dogs, by the way. they’re Zen-Zi’s.

Duchess.

Mama Tasha.

As I’ve mentioned in the previous post, Zen-Zi and I had lunch with Wei Ling since she’s back in Penang for the summer holidays after she won the Miss Malaysia Earth Water title (congratulations again!), so we decided to bring her to Ecco Cafe. That is my second time there, as Zen-Zi’s mum brought us there for dinner last time, and the food was really good so we decided to go again.

The restaurant is clean and cozy to dine in except for the fact that it’s located at Chulia Street, which is among the few busy streets during workdays, and the occasional rumbling of RapidPenang buses’ engines are.. well, unappetizing to some. To go there, go to Chulia Street and the restaurant is located just opposite the junction turning into Cintra Street.

Lovely decors.

The girls deciding what to order.

Ordered focaccia, 3 slices of Italian bread with pesto dip. Tasted a bit weird at first but after that it got okay (compared to the rest! Keep reading)

We then ordered Truz, which is pasta with Cajun spiced chicken and BANANAS with cream sauce. Yes, bananas. Don’t get me wrong, it tasted really good and that was the second time I’ve tasted it.

Next up we have the Ecco pizza, which has the same name as the restaurant itself. It’s basically pizza with tomato, capscium, aubergine (eggplant), onion and basil. The pizza dough is handmade and the crust is especially thin and crispy so you can sink your teeth right into the topping and the crust will be ripped clean off by your teeth.

I have to admit, I Googled up Ecco Cafe before we went, so a lot of websites seem to recommend the chicken pot pie so yes we ordered that as well. IT TASTED HEAVENLY. So many food blogs can’t be wrong. The chicken, potato cubes, peas and the soup-sauce blend in perfectly. It’s under Chef’s Specialty on the menu and indeed, it does not disappoint.

Before we went back.

Fancy having Italian food at a prewar shophouse beside a busy street while people go about their daily lives? You won’t want to miss Ecco Cafe.

Info:

Ecco Cafe
402 Chulia Street,
George Town, Penang, Malaysia
Tel: +60-4-2623178
Business Hours: Open daily except Sunday from 11:30am to 2:30pm and 6:00pm to 10:30pm

Okay so I know I’m a bit late, and statistics show that my visitor/day has dropped to an average of 20 – more than 50% of which are from search engines with stupid terms like Umbrella Corporation, 2PM abs and more – but I hope you guys will continue to support me as I was busy preparing for my AUP final tests since a few weeks back, so now I’m on semester break until 15th August, when I will return to college as a sem III student.

Wei Ling is back from UK for her summer holidays so we brought her out for lunch at Ecco Cafe, an Italian restaurant at Chulia Street that is famous for its handmade pasta and pizza, and hopefully I will be able to blog more on that later because the food tasted really good, and I actually heeded the advice of several food blogs that recommended the chicken pot pie and ordered it!

So anyway, this is the first time I’m close enough to a supercar to be able to shoot a few closeup shots. The car belongs to Wei Ling’s family and it’s a Porsche Boxster S. I would so love to go on a ride in this baby.

The name of every Porsche model can be found at the rear end of the vehicles.

Not exactly a killer post, I know, but I can only say that the photos don’t do the car justice. Stay tuned!

[dropcap]T[/dropcap] he AUP gala is an annual event and those from the January intake already got a whiff of it since our first semester in INTI, around March-April, and unsurprisingly, the who’s-gonna-ask-who-out rumors spread like wildfire. There were conflicts among friends, awkward moments when people got rejected or turned down, but at the end of the day, I think everyone will agree with me that it definitely was an amazing night! A night to remember.

The gala was themed One Night In Vegas, and true enough, we got to gamble! (which is not something you get to do often, normally) Tables were set up, covered with green cloth to simulate an actual casino table. There were about 6 tables, with Blackjack, Baccarat, In-Between, Texas Hold ‘Em and well, I forgot what the others were. The dealers were standing (with some sitting, but most were standing), with chairs occupied by players surrounding the table, like how it is in Vegas.

Everyone was given a starting fund of $2000 in chips, with a combination of $500, $250, $100, $50 chips. The only thing worth criticizing that night is the chips. They simply don’t look like casino chips. Casino chips are, look, feel like plastic and our chips were made of scrap metals which were sprayed on. Nevertheless, it’s still an ingenious idea by the OC.

[info title="Details"]Date: 2nd July 2011

Time: 6.30pm-11.00pm

Venue: Equatorial Hotel – Main Ballroom[/info]

Events like this provide everyone with the excuse to dress up nicely. Put away your usual college shorts, sneakers, t-shirts and jeans! Everyone looked really good that night with some exceptions of those who overdid their makeup. I shall not elaborate more on the attire that night, after all, in Vegas, you get to be who you want and wear whatever you like.

Someone on Facebook commented on Yan Yao’s photo of the same situation:

Eunice: Come here to mama.

Lroy: AAAHHHHH.

Important people talking.

Emcees for the night: Eureka and Adam.

OC: Jun Qi and Pei Liang. Casino floor managers ensuring that everything runs smooth and nobody tries to beat the system.

Of course, there were performances as well but I only managed to take pics of a few.

The Baccarat table. Kok Keong was dealer and everyone earned a lot of money.

The food was good, but not awesome.

The tables.

Joyce and Wei Xiong. They look like some married couple in Vegas, both putting on poker faces.

BLACKJACK BABY!

[title1]Drinking Competition[/title1]

Every table had to send up a representative to participate in the drinking competition. The participants raced each other in downing glasses and glasses (and in the semifinal and final, JUGS) of orange juice. Most of them puked in the end, seriously.

Not for the faint-hearted..

[title1]High-rollers’ showdown and slow dance session[/title1]

And so only 6 of the players with the highest amount of $$ in chips got to enter the high-rollers’ showdown, which is essentially a Texas Hold ‘Em table with higher minimum bets than the usual tables. During this time, the other tables were already closed and this was the only table left playing, so people crowded around to witness the showdown.

The bets got higher and the player who won a round automatically becomes the leading player. There were 5 (or 6?) rounds so in the end Hui Yee, the winner of the 6th winner is obviously the winner of the night, she walked away with a PRINTER!

After that, there were the prize-giving ceremony and speech by Jun Qi who is the president of AUPEC (AUP Executive Committee). The night ended with a performance by Daniel’s band and a slow dance session.

The photo above is the ‘pre-slowdance dance’, didn’t have time to take pics for slow dance as we went home earlier.

All in all, it was a really great night. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. On Monday, I went back to college and I had a strange feeling that I just woke up from a strange fantasy. During that night, everyone was high-rollers; but back in college, we are all just students with a bag fighting for our own futures.

I know from your letters and from seeing you after your play that you feel a little bit lost right now about what to do with your life, a bit rudderless and oarless and aimless but that’s okay that’s alright because we’re all meant to be like that at twenty-four. In fact our whole generation is like that. I read an article about it, it’s because we never fought in a war or watched too much television or something. Anyway, the only people with oars and rudders and aims are dreary bores and squares and careerists like Tilly-bloody-Killick or Callum O’Neill and his refurbished computers. I certainly don’t have a master plan I know you think I’ve got it all sorted out but I haven’t I worry too I just don’t worry about the dole and housing benefit and the future of the Labour Party and where I’m going to be in twenty years’ time and how Mr Mandela is adjusting to freedom.

-Dexter

Just find this very hilarious.

And so it was a beautiful morning. I just finished my tests for Calculus II and C Programming I last week so it was and still is a relaxing weekend for me. We hadn’t been making our own breakfast in a while already so I suggested that we make our own during Saturday morning when I’m at her house, so we Googled some nice breakfast ideas. I wanted this at first but it’s too fattening. I’m on diet.

So in the end we decided to make beef burittos. Okay I admit I was confused between the terms buritto and tortilla, so I Googled them up and buritto means “a Mexican dish consisting of a tortilla rolled around a filling, typically of beans or ground or shredded beef,” so tortilla is actually the flat cornmeal pancake made of flour that is wrapped around the fillings.

You see that? CORNED BEEF. I cannot describe how awesome it tasted but imagine beef that is so tender and with just the right amount of saltiness. When Zen-Zi’s mum fried it with onions and olive oil, it smelled so good that we just had to sneak a few (okay ‘a few’ is a bit of an understatement here) fingerfuls off the plate. My guess is that if you like luncheon meat, odds are that you would love corned beef, except that it’s not pork, of course.

Tomatoes, avocado, onions, garlic. I helped chopped the first 3.

And lime.

And after almost 45 mins of preparation, we put the tortillas on a frying pan with a small drop of olive oil. After a while they started to look like roti canai, which means they were getting crispy enough.

There you go, bon appetit!