Dead goldfish get to decide America's next President too?!

This is really democratic. America is liberate enough to let goldfish decides as well on who should be the next of the United States! Not kidding, read the news below from msn.com.

Dead goldfish gets voter registration material

For those who have no time - apparently, someone registered their second phone line under their pet goldfish's name. Years passed and goldfish died. Strangely, the family recently received voter registration material addressed to their dead gold fish! This incident prompted election officials to look into the matter to see whether there are any frauds involved.

This election is getting more and more interesting as days closes in. Hmmm...

窦唯《窗外》

我很久以前看电视听到窦唯的一段哼唱，觉得那旋律非常特别，所以一直在找那首歌。我找了好久都没找到，最近偶然的发现那首歌名字叫《窗外》。那是窦唯艳阳天专辑里的一首旧歌。我不会解释，歌词或许没有什么意思，旋律也很独特，不像普通的流行歌曲那样嚷嚷上口，但是我就是深深的被歌曲的意境吸引。

在1999年时，王菲的演唱会上我看到了窦唯的表演。老实说，我当时才稍微了解他“迷人”之处。他吸引人的地方在于他的才气。他打鼓的样子，其实应该说任何在玩乐器的男人，都非常的有魅力。他的歌声不怎么样，但是做音乐方面非常行。我就非常喜欢王菲和他所创作音乐。

窦唯《窗外》



王菲和窦唯写的《誓言》



王菲的《无常》有些许窦唯的影子

Fried Fish While It's Still Alive... (Cruel! Cruel! Cruel!)

Warning: Not for the faint hearted...

I saw this video in news years ago, but managed to find the footage from YouTube. Similar to Lobster Sashimi in Japan, but Chinese gone a step further, the chef scaled, gutted and fried fish while keeping the fish alive... Apparently, the fish will stay alive for sometime and worse the fish was subjected to excruciating pain before dying....

I can only wish that the fish had a better after life...

Gold Fish Living in Deep Fryer (Cruel!)

I really take my hat off the Japanese, to think they can come up with this idea. If you ever fry food, you would know that crumbs might break off and would sink to the bottom of the pan. When not removed, they would cloud and pollute the oil. That's why restaurants like MacDonald etc has to change their frying oil very often, almost at a daily basis.

So, the Japanese think of a solution. Yosh~! Wakaramasu~ If the crumbs are removed automatically, then the oil will stay fresher for long period of time and less often to change it. This is what they thought of:

For the benefit of those who are unable to view the video, Japanese reared goldfish under the deep fryer. How is this possible you asked? Well, water has a higher density than oil, thus oil will natually float above the water. The heater installed near the top will heat up the oil to at least 160 degrees celcius for frying.

If, that is if, the goldfish somewhat forget and swam upwards, they will be fried alive... As a goldfish owner, I condemn this act as it violates the goldfish living rights and it is a very cruel way of treating living things!

I will never eat at restaurants that uses this kind of fryer!

The Making of Lychee Martini Jelly (Konnyaku)

The weather was exceptionally hot these few days. I have been craving for some ice-cold konnyaku jelly to freshen up, thus decided to make some. There is no recipe pe say for making Konnyaku or jelly, basically it needed water, jelly powder, sweetener and flavour. I decided to play around with the basic ingredients to create an adult version.

Needless to say, I love lychee, thus it would be the main flavour for my alcoholic jelly aptly named Lychee Martini Konnyaku.

You will need:

1 Packet of Konnyaku Powder - Original (unflavoured)
Sweetener - Canned Lychee Syrup instead of sugar
Vodka or any clear alcohol spirit (Depending on how strong you want to taste the alcohol)
For some fizz, soda water

Measurement of the rest of the ingredients depended greatly on your Konnyaku powder.

Explaination (needed a bit of calculation) - Let's say your brand of konnyaku powder required 1000ml of water, x grams of sugar and little amount of artificial flavouring. Instead of using them, I used canned lychee syrup to replace part of the water, sweetener and artificial flavouring. I have to note that whatever amount of liquid that I used, it should not exceed the stated amount of water.

Sweetener - Instead of sugar, I used the canned lychee syrup which is about 330 ml per can. I suggest you should use about 1 and half can of syrup for one packet of powder - 450 ml. There should be no need to add further sugar unless you prefered it to be sweeter.

I also calculated in advance that I will add one can of soda water for some fizz and it is about 330 ml. This should be added lastly to retain the fizz bubble.

The total liquid content will thus add up to 780ml. The difference will be topped with plain water to make it the total of 1000 ml.

I scooped some of the syrup and water mixture up to mix in the Konnyaku Powder. It should mix with cold solution then poured back to the rest of the solution for a more thorough mix.

Warmed the mixture up in a pot to get it boiling. Constantly stiring it to prevent burning.

When the mixture thickens and boiled, take it off heat. Added in the alcohol. This is so that the alcohol would not evaporate off in the process of boiling. The amount of alcohol to add is up to your preference, as strong as you like it to be. I am still a newbie, thus only added 4 capful and it is still relatively mild. Stir thoroughly. You can also add in colouring at this stage. If the mixture appeared to be hardening, warmed it slightly.

Quickly add in the Soda water lastly to retain the fizz.

In your desired container, add in lychee meat for decoration purposes, but also for a stronger lychee taste.

Scoped in the jelly mixture using a laddle. Try not to move it after that and wait for it to set.

You can also put them in a fanciful ice-cude moulds for individual servings (or rather shots).

One packet of jelly powder can made about this much of jelly. I used different containers and decorated differently as you can see.

Konnyaku harden quite fast. It took only like 10 to 15 mins. I unmounded two of them on a plate. Somewhat, it remained me of a human part anatomy. You know how people would give cocktail drinks with naughty names? I named these jellies "D-Cups". Haha.

Another pattern. I like how the fruits appeared to be floating around in the jelly.

Last but not least "D-cups" with the smaller shots of lychee martini jellies.

Who says Bishan don't have good chicken rice?

I walked passed one of the Bishan S-11 coffee shop and the slogan on a poster caught my eye, "Who says Bishan don't have good chicken rice?" highlighted in big, bold red writting. The second line says "Here is one, Bugis - Ming Kee Chicken Rice!" I peaked inside the coffee shop, trying to locate the stall and indeed there was a queue forming at the Chicken Rice stall. Of course, I cannot just pass-by without trying, so off I joined the queue.


Somehow, I find neon light signboard familiar, think I saw this stall at some other places before. Then I somewhat recall that it was at the old Long House Hawker centre prior this place. As if the queue did not exsist, more people joined me and none of them was put off by the possible long wait.

Strangely, the stall do not hang their chickens like all other stalls, but instead they were staked up high in a tray. Though looked ordinary, the pieces of the chicken still looked plump and juicy enough. Their pale yellow coloured chicken skin gittered under the lights looked inviting.

I ordered a large packet for sharing. The wait was worth it. The essential chicken rice, though not as firm as I like it to be, was very fragnant with a nice balance of chicken and ginger aroma. The un-interesting looking chicken pieces , mostly breast meat, were surprisingly juicy and tender. I usually do not eat the skin, but the boiled chicken tasted especially rich in the skin.

Do try out their chicken rice if you happened to be in Bishan area. Btw, that coffee shop has a lot of other heavy weight hawker stalls, such as You Kee Braised Duck Rice and Gao Ji Yong Dou Fu. I must also say that their Zi Char stall looked promising too.

No Kissing in Taxi or Else...

Hey see this, we were in a taxi at Kuala Lumpur and saw the above sign. My friend who is versed in Malayu translated that it meant " No Kissing in the Taxi".

I guess it was due to the fact that Malaysia is an Islamic country and people are somewhat restricted to display affection publicly. Not sure if this is the exact reason... but this is the first time I heard of this.

How come they only restricted to taxis only? What about other places, like public area?

Absolute Vodka Collection

Capped in beautifully-crafted bottle, inflused with fanciful flavour, mind you some of them are even limited edition. Don't be fool though, they looked innocently pure but are dangerously fiery. These swedish vodka are like grown-up boys' version of trading cards. These are my brother's Absolute Vodka collection. He don't intend to drink them, but wanted to keep them as collection.

As you can see in the picture, there are :

• Chinese Mandarin
• Raspberry
• Pear
• Ruby Red
• Original
• Mango (new)
• Vodka 100 (which contains 50% of alcohol content compared to the normal 40% ones)
• Vokda limited Silver Shaker edition bottle

Hmmm... Looking through the flavour, I wondered why there is no lychee-flavoured Absolute Vodka. Can the company consider producing it? It will be so cool... I know I will be the one buying it for his collection.