Spiderwick Chronicles - Good Movie

Watched the movie "The Spiderwick Chronicles" and find it's quite a good movie. The plot is simple and somewhat predictable. Heh it's fantasy setting movie adapted from children's books of the same name so I didn't have any high expectation in the plot sense. But the effects are quite good and there is no lull in the movie, i.e. every part is presented with a bit of surprise.

It's not an epic style kind of fantasy setting like Lord of the Ring but is entertaining enough for those who like goblins, griffins and faeries. Some parts are funny, especially the last few scenes when Hogsqueal threaten the griffin that he will eat the big bird someday. Overall a good enough choice if you have no other movies in mind, but not a great loss if you miss it.

Bought the Spiderwick combo popcorn set that comes with this luggage tag (pic below) but wonder who will ever use it for their luggage? Maybe I can try using it next time... hmmm.

Read in the wiki entry that there is even a game based on the Spiderwick Chronicles, wow. Oh and below is the trailer for those interested. The website of the Spiderwick Chronicles books is also quite interesting with illustrations of the different creatures.

US Dog Bakery @ Caltex!

Was walking past East Coast Road when I spotted this bakery for dogs! Wow, imagine a bakery that makes cookies & biscuits specially for dogs. Heh heh gives a new meaning to the term 'dog biscuits'. Here's a link to their website.

This bakery is approved by AVA. Makes me wonder how AVA people view this application initially ... hmm.

Seems like business is doing well, it got three branches all in all. One at east Coast Road, one at SengKang and a new one at Bukit Timah. I actually found it when walking past a Caltex Petrol station, and yupz it has made some news for those dog lovers. Here's the Caltex station where I found it.

永记 Chicken Rice @ Tekka Market

I would miss the hawker food over at Tekka Market (i.e. hawker centre near Little India MRT).

Lolz, the hawker centre is slated for renovation and I'm not sure how many of the nicer food stall will remain after the renovation. So, decided to note down some stalls... for remembrance sake.

I used to eat chicken rice alot, the roasted version, cos' I used to buy the roasted chicken rice from this stall at teh Tekka Market: 永记. The chicken rice is above average, not totally fantastic, but worth eating. Afterall, where else can you find decently good chicken rice for $2 a plate? His steamed chickend rice is also very good! Guess the trick is in the chili sauce. The rice itself used to be better, cos' there used to be an auntie frying the rice with ginger before cooking them. I think the effort is too much so the practice stopped.

Here's the $2 plate.



I bought the $3 plate too.



I took a pic of the stall (without the owner's permission... oops :p ). The owner is the guy with apron standing on the right of the stall.




Yah, there are many other good food in Tekka Market. When I have the time I wld try to take pics of them. Some stalls like the soup prawn mee, and briyani, would close by the time I wake up... lolz... so a bit tough lah :p

Coffee Barista Course @ Highlander - Part 2

Heh here's part 2 of the barista training course! Let me describe a bit about the training course details. We were given a training manual and on day 2, asked to sit for a simple 18 questions test. The test basically reinforces the idea about how we should grind the beans, i.e. how fine or coarse should the grind be. This depends largely on the trial and error when we look at how the thick thick coffee flows from the machine. Here's how the machine looks like. The grinder is the standalone device next to the metal expresso machine.


Oh, and I learnt that brewed coffee has more caffeine compared to those from the expresso shots machine cos' of the contact time of water with the coffee powder. The powder that we put into the portafilter will only have limited crucial amount of time with the high pressure water to extract the nice part of the coffee from the coffee powder. Here's how the portafilter looks like:


We also learnt about the varieties of coffee, and the characteristics of the coffee from the different countries. We did some cupping on day 2, and I think I still like coffee from Brazil and Sumatra best. Guess next time when I step into a cafe, I'll better aprpeciate the different blends of coffee. I got a cert from the course! So now I can apply to work for those coffee houses... heh heh heh.


Above are the small bowls filled with hot water, and allowed to 'stew' for a while before we do the cupping.


For those who are not going to the course, no worries, you could learn quite a fair bit from watching the Channel U clip below. Heh the trainer in the clip is Cedric, and the other trainer for the course (not shown in the clip) is Phil. Unlike in the clip, we didn't get to 'roast' coffee though, cos' I suppose the time is a bit too short to try that.

They also offer other simpler courses on how to appreciate coffee, qutie useful if you are looking to organise some corporate employee half day courses of about $20-40 per pax budget.

Coffee Barista Course @ Highlander - Part 1

Some weeks back I was talking about the different coffee latte arts and asking around for a course. I found it! Lolz. I found the coffee barista course, and signed up for it. I spent two days (actually it's one afternoon and 1 morning) at the Highlander Cafe learning about the different skills of being a barista.

Hmm the trainers are quite good, and since the class of 6 is small, we have plenty of practices. The course cots $298, and includes some details of the cost of operating a cafe. Will be interesting for those who inspire to own cafes. First day we learnt about how to steam the milk, and make expresso / cuppacino / latte. The second day we spent some time practising, and did some cupping.

A classmate made this and in the next picture, he was trying to 'etch' a design on the coffee. The milk was steamed by me, and apparently the bubbles were a bit too big, thus the etchings were not as great.




This is the latte 'art' from me:


My classmate is more interested in making the latte art (I'm interested in the drinking part), and he accidentally created this 'Squidward' lookalike from the SpongeBob cartoon. Really looks like Squidward??



Cos' this post is getting a bit long, I'll break it into two parts. Part 2 coming shortly.

Fear Factor at Home - I ate worms!

Didn't know that worms are that expensive... o.k. not all types of worms... but cordyceps sinensis! The chinese name is 冬虫夏草. It's both a worm and a plant. Here's the wiki on it.

My mum bought some of these cordyceps sometime back, when they cost like near to $100 per 两. One 两 = 37.5g. So she was happily cooking 37.5g of these with some other herbs and black chicken. Then she saw this article in the chinese papers - '购买时须谨慎 假冬虫夏草流入市面' and realised that the pot of herbal chicken now could cost more than $1,500!! Lolz... quoting from the article:

正品虫草王每两的零售价1500元以上

Lolz... this is really funny. The article then explains the difference between fake and real stuff.

正品虫草王的虫体及虫头长出的真菌子座相连，虫体形如蚕，长3-5公分，直径0.3-O.8 公分。表面深黄色至黄棕色，有明显环纹20-30个，近头部的环纹较细，头部红棕色，虫体有8对足，中间4对较明显

Apparently the real worms have 4 visible pairs of legs...which leave some stump-like thingy. O.k. I got the pictures here.


Not clear? No worries, let me point out the legs to you:


Yupz I ate the worms. Common' if these worms really cost as much as what the articles say, aren't you going to eat them? Hee if fear factor gives me such worms to eat, I wouldn't mind participating. See this spoonful of worms... muaa haa haa... yummy.


See the pic below where only the 'plant' part was left? I ate the worm part... ahem.

Hire More, Increase Salary? Is the picture that rosy?

Recently there is a slew of positive articles in the papers about the Singapore economy. If I string the different articles together the picture seems a tad too rosy to be true.

First there is this article that says that "More Singapore bosses now say they will employ new staff in the next three months". The article commented that the survey of 650 bosses gives the strongest indication of more hiring since the survey began in 2003. Curious to know who is hiring? Here's the findings from the survey:

public administration and education, with a net outlook of 81 per cent. Following them are: transport and utilities (78 per cent); finance, insurance and real estate (68 per cent); construction (67 per cent); wholesale and retail trade (61 per cent); services (57 per cent); and manufacturing (46 per cent).

Ok so more companies are hiring...fine.

Then there are two other articles, time difference of 6 months from their date of publishing, that also suggest that salaries will go up by about 5%. Here's the Business Times articles in Sep 2007, that compared salary hikes across countries using a poll conducted by a Hong Kong company. Then this is the other article from Straits Times that is more recent (March 2008) giving the same result of about 5% salary hike for Singapore, again based on a poll but conducted by a separate company based in Singapore.

But is this really an increase in the purchasing power of the employees here? Heh heh... here's the quote from the Straits Times article:

But is the average 5 per cent pay rise enough to keep pace with inflation, which hit a 26-year high of 6.6 per cent in January?

Interesting isn't it? So we are paid 'more' just to keep up with inflation. Lolz.
Then there is also this article that suggested that for the construction industry, there are not enough workers. Seems like (from the article)

The whole of Singapore has become a construction site.

The companies need more workers, but the salary hikes is only sufficient to beat inflation. Of course this is not going to attract more people to work, i.e. housewives will still be housewives, semi-retired people in their 50-60s will stay that way.

So the solution is? You got it! Open the job market to foreigners! Here's the Straits Times article about our bus drivers, "China bus drivers hired as few S'poreans keen on job". This reinforces the other earlier point that up to 78% of the companies in the transport and utilities sector are looking to hiring more workers in the next three months. Nope this doesn't just applies to low skill workers, since Singapore is deemed a great locations by expats as well in this finding from a consultancy survey firm.

So yes, in general it's a rosy picture for the local economy. Growth while maintaining wages at near inflation level. No worry of stagflation at all, right?! :) The economy policy planners are good... economy is good and still growing well... companies are doing well. Just not so sure if it's equally good for the local workers? Hmm... should be isn't it since the government is giving generous handouts to everyone? Lolz... rosy? You decide...

On a sidenote... I find it harder and harder to get seats in public transport i.e. bus or mrt... and harder to find seats during lunch in foodcourt (despite the increase of prices for both).

Singapore Flyer Trip

Last week went with colleagues to the Singapore Flyer! Felt like a school excursion somehow. The ticks are at $29.50 for an adult. The whole flyer experiecne lasted about 30 minutes. Quite enjoyable actually though some folks got bored after 5 mins. It is recommended to go in a group of people since you could do more group activities (e.g. take photos, or do a Kallang Wave and shock the passengers in the other capsule).


Took some pictures for the event. Here's how the flyer looks like from a distance, and the entrance to the capsule.




In the capsule, the view is good. If you look across / down from within the capsule, these are what you will see.






Took a picture of the on-going construction at the Integrated Resort. Guess the view from the flyer at night will be even better when the IR is up. Took many other pictures too, but I guess these are enough for now.

Free Starbucks Coffee & IT Show 2008

Thursday was a busy day... other than the usual work stuff there were two other interesting events - Free Starbucks Coffee! & the IT Show 2008!

Heh heh...like many other cheapos... we went to get the starbucks coffee which is free from 10am till noon. The coffee weren't great but who would complain about free stuff right? Seems like it's a drive by Starbucks to help the coffee beans farmers. Though I'm not sure how giving away free coffee will help the farmers.



The queue was long...guess that's typical of queues for free stuff here.



Went to the IT Show 2008 straight after lunch. Lucky it weren't that crowded yet. Bought a Logitech MX 518 mouse there since my current one a bit cranky.



Originally wanted to try out the new MacBook Air. There were simply too many people crowded round it, so all I could do was to snap a shot of it...zzz

An NMP's speech that we should read

I just read Mr Siew Kum Hong, an NMP's speech about the recent Budget 2008. A very moving speech. The response officially is that his speech is 'reckless'.

Hmm, I think the point to note is how people are being treated than the exact details of how much to spend for the citizens. I think sometimes the higher-ups may have missed the point completely, and the point is how this country treats its people. It need not be about large money hands-out; it is just the attitude. I earlier mentioned that that sometimes I hoped we wouldn't be treated as mere numbers, but citizens who live in this small little island, citizens whose lives revolve around this little island. Think the PR dept of various government agencies need to do more... in the speeches they write, they could build in more 'caring' sentences for the people.

Of course, if there are concrete plans to recognise the citizens (e.g. previously the papers did some good write-ups about local entrepreneurs) that would be best...