Free modem... and over-supply of it!

Had just re-contracted my broadband cos the plan looks attractive, i.e. half price for 1 year while the full price is still cheaper than what I'm paying now. One of the freebies is a modem. I was asking the counter staff at the shop if I can change it for other things and he said no. Somemore I gotta sign up for the re-contract online, and surrender a lot of other personal info... hmmm.

I thought to sell off the modem after I got it. BUT.... guess lotsa of other people faces the same issue, and a simple search on www.yahoo.com.sg shows at least 12 other persons selling exactly the same thing! Ebay Singapore shows 4 sellers and there are other websites like singapore.craigslist.com.sg with sellers of the modem too. Haiz... Dun understand why is it that the ISPs can't change the freebies for other stuff... even a simple grocery voucher of $30 is fine for me...zzz. Now there are too many sellers... with folks offering it as low as $15. Majority trying to sell it at $30-$50 range. Irritating...

Red Wine and Bak Gwa

Heh it's the time of the year when bak gwa (bbq pork slices) is the favourite food of the mth! Chinese New Year must have bak gwa else it is sort of incomplete. Today I bought 500g of it from Bee Cheng Hiang and guess wat? It's almost gone by the end of the day! Here's the pic of the bak gwa. It's just sliced pork and not the bacon version.



Lolz... cos we opened another bottle of wine and the bak gwa became the natural tidbits to go along with it. This bottle from France is quite good... lolz. Seems to be from some St Joseph region. Here's a pic of it, and since I don't speak French I don't exactly know what the label says. There is some award thing for the wine too. Wonder if anyone ever try the concept of wine pairing with traditional asian food, should be interesting!

Cup of coffee and arts

Heh, recently I had coffee at more places and realised that the coffee barista would create nice patterns on the foam of the coffee. This is not something new, but just didn't expect to be served such a cup of nice 'arty' coffee when ordering coffee here.

Had my first 'arty' coffee at Sunctec's Crosstalk Cafe. Not bad, since I didn't expect to have such 'arty' cafe served at this busy cafe outlet.

Then I tried the coffee at the new Suntec Gloria Jeans, and the barista also created a nice 'arty' pattern on the latte foam. Seems like Gloria Jeans did some competition for such 'coffee arts' some time back.

The two patterns look similar hor? lolz... I saw others with a 'leaf' or 'heart' shaped patterns. Wonder where could I learn such means of making 'coffee art'? I heard sometime back some folks were trying to open a coffee school locally, but couldn't find the news article. Found this Youtube clip instead:



Heh... speaking of coffee... I just bought coffee from the traditional grinders. Of course, I haven't found the best way of making the coffee... still learning, but it does taste better than the instant mix type...

Free Organiser from The Coffee Connoisseur

Heh reached home today and I saw a mini-package from The Coffee Connoisseur aka TCC. Though I have their card, but I didn't really spend that much on TCC, and so am quite pleasantly surprised to receive 'customer gifts' from them. Last year they gave some postcards... and when I saw the package I thought it's another big stack of postcards!

Then I opened it up and saw this... quite nice hor? But I still don't know what is inside... and so gotta unpack it one more time...

and here's it!

Heh it's not difficult to be their member... just spend an accumulated amount of $88 and filled in the form to be one. I dunno why $88... gotta ask their boss bah... used to visit TCC quite often but didn't really have much chance recently though... heh wonder what wld they give next year... hmm.

Wines ...

Had another wine session on Friday with abt 6-7 of us finishing a bottle of red. 1 bottle for that many people is not a lot, but I guess it's just for chill out. Before the session, was thinking which bottle to consume for that day... and here's the options:

End up we choose the Wyndham Estate Bin 444, a red Cabernet Sauvignon from Australia. Not bad :) Guess I shld note the wines that are not bad and we could get more of such bottles next time. Just realised that his bottle cost only less than 10 pounds on some websites and about US$8.99 on others... can't recall the retail price locally.

I still have that quarter bottle of sake... and dunno what to do with it actually... use for cooking? Lolz... that day the cleaning lady walked over to me and asked 'Can I have some alcohol?' I was like 'huh?!?!' for a long period of time until she explained that she was cooking some steam fish at the pantry and the vinegar she used is not that great, so she thought to get some alcohol from me...zzz... I got no rice wine for cooking, so gave her a bit of the sake instead... dunno how the fish taste like cos' I didn't dare to ask muaa haa haa.... (do I look like alcohol supplier?)

青花瓷的歌词

Recently heard this song, and like it almost instantly cos the lyrics really beautiful. Listening to it about 2-3 times (or more per day).

The only trouble is that this song is sung by Jay Chou... while he is a great singer, his mumbling at times could cause some confusion. Supposedly this is one of the clearer song? The 1st line of the chorus has confused me quite a bit.

I think here's the official lyrics? If you look at the chorus and then listen to it... does it gives you the impression it's more of 天正在等烟雨? lolz... then I decide to do some search and saw this entry on Baidu which sort of fully explain the lyrics... and of course made it even more beautiful. 等 can have so much meaning... 只有单人才有'等 '的真义... lolz.

Then I followed the link on the site to 方文山's blog and realised 方文山 is that fellow who acted in the MTV of 珊瑚海??!

青花瓷 词/方文山 曲/周杰伦

素胚勾勒出青花笔锋浓转淡
瓶身描绘的牡丹一如你初妆
冉冉檀香透过窗心事我了然
宣纸上 走笔至此搁一半

釉色渲染仕女图韵味被私藏
而你嫣然的一笑如含苞待放
你的美一缕飘散 去到我去不了的地方

天青色等烟雨 而我在等你
炊烟袅袅升起 隔江千万里
在瓶底书汉隶仿前朝的飘逸
就当我 为遇见你伏笔

天青色等烟雨 而我在等你
月色被打捞起 晕开了结局
如传世的青花瓷自顾自美丽
你眼带笑意

色白花青的锦鲤跃然于碗底
临摹宋体落款时却惦记着你
你隐藏在窑烧里千年的秘密
极细腻 犹如绣花针落地

帘外芭蕉惹骤雨门环惹铜绿
而我路过那江南小镇惹了你
在泼墨山水画里 你从墨色深处被隐去

天青色等烟雨 而我在等你
炊烟袅袅升起 隔江千万里
在瓶底书汉隶仿前朝的飘逸
就当我 为遇见你伏笔

天青色等烟雨 而我在等你
月色被打捞起 晕开了结局
如传世的青花瓷自顾自美丽
你眼带笑意