I have located the Blogfather’s accommodation in Sydney. Using a twitpic posted by the Blogfather himself, my housemates and I used Google maps to confirmed his current place of residence in Sydney. Thus the status of the mission is upgraded to ongoing:
Debriefing on identifying mrbrown’s locations in Sydney, NSW
Selected point man: Zareth Lim
Target: mrbrown
Target’s last known location:Planking at SPARC 2011, somewhere around Sydney CBD (Circular Quay)
Mission goal: To locate mrbrown in Sydney and get a photo together with him and his autograph
Current status:Ongoing
Method: Twitter updates, Google mapping and good old fashion leg work.
Soon, soon I will meet with the Blogfather. It’s only a matter of patience and perseverance. The 2 powerful Ps, I call them.
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That aside, I just want to let you know that I am one of the top 10 finalists in the Best What-The-Hell blog category! This is exciting, I’ve never been in any major competition before and to have my barely two-years-old blog as one of the finalist is nothing sort of awesome, especially in a competition like the Singapore Blog Awards 2011.
First, I would like to thank Alvin for nominating my blog. I’ve blogged about my nomination, where I did a bit of sleuthing to verify if this competition was…ahem…legit. Turned out it was and I registered my blog in the competition. So thanks, Alvin!
I would also like to thank the judges who have the foresight to choose my blog as one of the top 10 finalists or else I’ll go all private detecting on their asses. Nah, kidding, I don’t have a lot of free time now. I’m suppose to be studying for my last two papers actually. But thanks, judges!
However, the game is not over yet. You see, the overall winner for each category will be determined 70% by a panel of professional judges. I’ve passed that hurdle. The other 30% will be determined by the public.
So yes, this is a shameless plug from me. I need your votes. You can vote for me once a day, every day from 6 June 2011 to 3 July 2011. Tell your family, friends, relatives, SO, even your superiors, because together, we can keep the rants flowing. Together, we can forge a brighter and greater future for this blog. Together, you and I.
So spread the word!
Plug end.
“But how do I vote?”
Excellent question, I have provided links for easy access. The links are here and here. All you need to do is to click on the “VOTE NOW!” button:
Unfortunately, the voting is only open to Singaporeans and Singapore PRs. Not my rules, sorry.
So that’s all, people. Remember to vote for me! I’ve just broke my Twitter virginity about 24 hours ago (due to the Blogfather’s unexpected arrival in Sydney), so you can follow me on Twitter. Just click on the Twitter button on the right.
Good night, and good luck.
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This is how I feel right now. I know I shouldn’t be elated when it’s not over yet but I can’t help it:
But I’m sure this is all just a front for other ‘activities’ for him to consort with his fellow associates (i.e. eating and eating). One can never be too suspicious.
After recovering from the initial adrenaline rush that mrbrown is coming to Sydney, I started preparing for my mission. I went to my battered Macbook and typed in the following:
Debriefing on identifying mrbrown’s locations in Sydney, NSW
Selected point man: Zareth
Target: mrbrown.
Target’s last known location: Onboard an unknown flight, heading towards Kingsford Airport, Sydney.
Mission goal: To locate mrbrown in Sydney and get a photo together with him.
Current status: Incomplete
Method: Inconclusive. Pending further notifications from point man.
The debriefing may seem short but that’s because I’ve just started compiling a case file given the short time notice. I must admit, I got stumped at the methodology of following and locating mrbrown in Sydney. So I methodically went through my options for locating mrbrown in the most efficient manner.
Facebook? I searched for mrbrown using his blog moniker ‘mrbrown’ and his real name. Search results turned out to be inconclusive.
Foursquare? No, I don’t really fancy revealing my positions on Foursquare. Besides, I’m not sure if mrbrown has a Foursquare account.
Following him through his blog? No, it won’t do. I need instant updates on his location.
This left me with one option:
Twitter.
Goddamn it.
Twitter was the only way I could follow and track mrbrown’s every movement instantaneously. However, I have a love-hate relationship with Twitter. Actually, take that back. I never had a relationship with Twitter.
I desperately scrawled through mrbrown’s blog for other means that he can be tracked but it proved futile. Twitter was the only way. I was going to have to break my Twitter virginity.
I let out a frustrated sigh but it had to be done. So I signed up and became part of the massive crowd’s chirping:
Now that I became part of Twitter, I decided to issue a challenge to the Blogfather, also known as the Bak Chor Mee man. It was the honourable thing to do. To creep up behind a man was the coward’s way of doing things. I had to let the Blogfather be aware that I was tracking his movements. So I sent out my very first tweet:
He did received my tweet. I made sure of it.
Now that the challenge have been issued, the preparations have been completed, I can lie low and wait. Yet, I still feel a sense of restless dread, like someone else is in hot pursuit of me, and I have become the fugitive instead of the pursuer, fleeing for my very life. And I have no idea who that someone is…
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This has become my favourite song to relax to. My brother introduced this song to me when I was convalescing after a failed mission.
This week has been a pretty hectic week for me. So apologies for the lack of updates.
I had two exams in this week. One was a take-home exam for an English Lit subject and another was an in-class exam for an International Security subject.
Each exam is worth 40%.
But it doesn’t end there. My take home-exam was due on Tuesday and my in-class exam was on Wednesday. So after submitting my take home-exam 10 minutes shy of the deadline, I flashed back home, took out my well-used midnight oil lamp and crammed for the in-class exam.
Stressful week indeed.
But… it hasn’t end yet.
This week is the last week of school and I’m currently on STUVAC, which means study vacation. It’s just a nice way of saying cram week. So during this one week, I’ll have to prepare for another take-home exam and an open book exam. At least I’ve got two exams out of the way already.
Anyway, enough of sidetracking. This post is not about exams or assignments or cramming or burning midnight oil.
This post is about eating prawns. Or more specifically, how I eat prawns.
But first, I would like you to meet Cooked Prawny:
Delicious, no?
Anyway, there’s a short back story to this post. Last night, I was at Star City (an integrated resort in Sydney) with a group of friends. The event was actually a society dinner but only a handful of people turn up, so it became a dinner with friends. Anyway, this restaurant, called Buffet Garden (what else?), was apparently famous for their all-you-can-eat prawns.
Their entire menu is all-you-can-eat by the way. I don’t know why the emphasis was on prawns.
Since I wanted to get my money’s worth, I grabbed some prawns and slices of lemon and settled down for a second round of feasting.
As I was chomping down on my prawns, the Secretary-elect of Unimates was tediously peeling the shells off her prawns. The outgoing President, a Chinese Filipino and a true blue, born-and-bred man of the sea (who happens to be doing his Masters in Information Technology), glanced at her and said, “Do you know the best way for peeling prawns?”
The Secretary-elect and I stared at the IT Man of the Sea. There was a best way to peel prawns?
The best way to peel prawns?
“First, you bite off the head,” the IT Man of the Sea said, “and you suck the head.”
The prawn’s head. Not a blowjob.
The Secretary-elect stared at the IT Man of the Sea and said, “Oh, I don’t really like the head.” Then she went back to peeling the shell of her prawns.
Meanwhile, I popped another prawn into my mouth, shell and all.
Yep, that’s how I eat prawns.
On the other hand, everyone at my table was peeling the shells of their prawns. I guess the majority of people eat prawns this way too:
Say hello to naked prawn.
Looks disgusting, right? When I was young, I always thought de-shelled prawns looked like orange-coloured, crescent-shaped testicles. Moving on.
So yes, I eat prawns in its entirety. I believe this is the second best way to eat prawns.
Why second best?
Well, one of my cousin has the talent of eating a prawn with its shell and after a few quick seconds, he’ll spit out the shell.
I tried doing that but I always get jaw and tongue cramps after a while. So I reverted back to my method.
So why do I eat the entire prawn with the shell?
Well, basically, I’m a lazy person. When I was a young kiddydums, I was taught to remove both head and tail, peel the prawn and then devour it. But after a few frustrated attempts with prawn juice splattering on me, I gave up and popped a prawn into my mouth.
It was… not that bad. Definitely crunchy.
Since then, I have been eating prawns this way.
Some people balked when they see me eating prawns this way. Questions range from: “Don’t you get pricked in the mouth?” to “Is it disgusting?” and to “Do you get hepatitis and food poisoning?”
Do I get pricked in the mouth? Yes, in the beginning. But now I’m pretty skilled enough to not get pricked in the mouth.
Is it disgusting? Not really, and the shell doesn’t dull the taste of the prawns (for me, apparently).
Do I get hepatitis and food poisoning? So far I have been given a clean bill of health. I know correlation does not imply causation, but I’m sure I’m not the only one that eat prawns this way. As long as the prawns are cooked properly, I’m fine, you’re fine, everybody’s fine. This also applies to cooked food in general.
However, eating prawns with shell does have one drawback, especially when I was a kid.
You see, when I first started eating prawns that way, my family and relatives had no idea about my new prawn-eating method. Being a Singaporean Chinese, we would get prawns one way or the other when we had a large family gatherings. At that stage in my life, I was a skinny, little runt, so my parents and relatives like to force-feed me. Every time they see my empty plate, they’ll pile food on it. Prawns included.
During the first round, I’ll polish off every single prawn. Of course, I ate the shells too:
Unfortunately, since my plate was devoid of prawn shells, one of my parent or relative would take pity on me, thinking I didn’t have any prawn, so they pile a second helping on my plate:
I would finish off the prawns, albeit at a much slower pace.
Once again, my parents or relative would see my plate empty of prawn shells, so they’ll pile a third heap onto my plate. By now, I’m protesting that I’m too full. But no one actually listens to a small kid’s protestations, do they?
So I have to eat the third heap of prawns:
After what seemed like an eternity, I managed to fill my little stomach with more prawns. But… another relative walks by, glances at my plate and goes, “Oh, you haven’t had prawns yet.”
Another fourth helping. Motherfuc…..
This time, I wised up. I leave the prawns’ heads behind as an incriminating evidence:
Since then, I’ve been eating prawns this way. I’ll make sure to leave some heads rolling so that people know I’ve eaten prawns.
So how do you eat prawns?
P.S. I googled “prawns in Australia” and got this. It’s the top result.
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I found this hilarious music video by nigahiga about two days ago. Make sure you watch the entire thing:
The first quarter of this year has been filled with events, both for me and the world at large.
And some are not really good events either.
Jan 2011: Revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and other Middle Eastern and North African countries.
Feb 2011: Earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand.
March 2011: 9.0 magnitude earthquake in Japan. Civil war in Libya.
Late March 2011: Earthquake in Burma. Civil unrest in Bahrain. NSW Labor Party lost power for the first time in 16 years to the Coalition. NSW Liberal leader Barry O’Farrell becomes NSW Premier.
A very busy first quarter.
For the media, this is a perfect field day for them. The perfect mix of politics, civil unrest and large-scale natural disasters. And since I’m a media politics student, it’s my duty to keep abreast with the news. But I’m reaching the point where I’m sick and tired of the news.
So fuck the news.
For approximately another 10 minutes.
Besides being updated on world news and checking if any of my Japanese friends were doing okay, I was busy feeding the masses of the Unimates society.
What’s Unimates? Basically we’re a society that brings together most of the international students in USyd and bring them around Sydney, New South Wales and Australia. More accurately, we are sort of like an international network, where people can meet and make friends with everyone from everywhere.
For this semester, I’m the Coffee and Cakes officer. Basically, this girl and I are the unofficial caterers.
We have Coffee and Cakes every Tuesday morning and the two of us are in charge of organizing, preparing the food and drinks, making sure that the members are kept sated and satisfied. It’s not an easy job, but we have people helping out, so it’s doable.
The only problem is that everyone keep asking for my brownies.
See, the problem was that I baked brownies for my friend’s Christmas party last year. It was my first time but it turned out to be a huge success. Unfortunately, 80% of the people at the party were or still are, Unimates committee members. So they recommended me to make brownies for Coffee and Cakes.
It was a great idea and at least I could bring something homemade for the event. So for the first C+C (Coffee and Cakes), I brought the brownies.
They were gone within 30 minutes and there were still at least 40 to 50 people who had not got the brownies yet.
Considering it was my second time making brownies, the response was pretty good.
The only problem was that the people (aka the people at the Christmas party) came too late and didn’t have the chance to try my brownies. The vice-president of the society, had heard wonders about my brownies but he was too busy helping out and didn’t have a chance to try it out.
So I promised that I would make brownies again.
For the next two weeks I didn’t make brownies cause I wanted to try something else for Week 2 (chili jam meatballs and vegan mashed potatoes) and was too fucking lazy and tired for Week 3.
Week 4 came and I decided to bake brownies.
Some people would usually bake the brownies the night before. But not me. I demand fresh-out-of -the-oven brownies. So I got up at 7am, baked two batch of brownies (after baking brownies for so goddamn many times, it only takes me about an hour) and brought them to C+C.
Good times were had by all.
But it’s tiring waking up so early or staying up all night just to bake brownies. So I’ve decided to put the recipe. I actually got it from this website and follow it closely. But you can make some tweaks to it. Be creative. Just don’t blow up the oven.
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The Recipe
Note: The original recipe calls for 16 servings of brownies. But I double the ingredients to make 32 servings (I have mouths to feed after all). If you want to bake 16 servings of brownies, use a 8 x 8 inches baking tray. If you want 32 servings, use a 9 x 13 inches baking tray. The recipe below is for 32 servings.
Brownies:
225 g (1 cup) butter
400 g (2 cups) white sugar
4 eggs
10 ml (2 teaspoons) vanilla extract
55 g (2/3 cup) unsweetened cocoa powder
125 g (1 cup) all-purpose flour
3 g (1/2 teaspoon) salt
2 g (1/2 teaspoon) baking powder
You might want to ease up on the vanilla extract cause if you put too much, your brownies might have a slightly bitter taste. Also, I use Cadbury’s Baking Cocoa Powder (I think that’s the name).
Baking time:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour an 9 x 13 inch pan.
In a large saucepan, melt 1/2 cup butter. Remove from heat, and stir in sugar, eggs, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat in 1/3 cup cocoa, 1/2 cup flour, salt, and baking powder. Spread batter into prepared pan.
Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Do not overcook.
Seems pretty simple right? That’s because it is. But there’s some things you need to take note first. Always, always preheat the oven first. That’s the first thing you have to do. My oven is some brand-new, fan-forced, Italian-made oven, so I can turn it on and know that it’ll be hot and toasty within a few minutes. If you have an old one, it might take longer. As a rule, I preheat the oven while I’m preparing the batter. Rule one: Know your oven.
Rule 2: Shift the cocoa powder. Especially when you are greasing the pan. What I do is that I grease the pan with some butter (using a brush makes things easier) and shift a mixture of cocoa powder and flour over the pan. This prevents the brownies from sticking to the pan during the baking process. I usually use one part flour and one part cocoa powder. You don’t have to use a lot. The most you should use is about 1/2 cup. Also, when you are making the batter, I recommend to shift the cocoa powder. It makes the brownies much more ‘smoother’. But it’s up to you to decide.
Rule 3: Don’t over mix!Just mix the batter enough to make sure that all the ingredients are mixed together. You want to retain the thick, fudgey taste.
Rule 4: Don’t overcook. Seriously, I can stress this enough. I usually bake my brownies for 25 minutes and then I take it out and let it cool. While it’s cooling, the brownies are still baking due to residue heat. The last thing you want is burnt brownies. So don’t overcook.
As for the frosting:
85 g (1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons) butter, softened
30 g (1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons) unsweetened cocoa powder
30 ml (2 tablespoons) honey
10 ml (2 teaspoons) vanilla extract
240 g (2 cups) confectioners’ sugar
To make:
Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and heat it. Remove from heat and stir. Pour onto warm brownies. Wait for frosting to set.
I can’t find confectioners’ sugar in Sydney. So I got chocolate icing sugar from Coles. If you use chocolate icing sugar, I suggest using 1 cup. Oh, and shift the cocoa powder.
The frosting is optional. The brownie is already quite sweet by itself. But if you have a huge sweet tooth like me, then go ahead, make the frosting.
That’s it! Brownies for all!
Sorry no pictures.
Now will people please stop hounding me for brownies.
Birthday Boy, another guy and I were having this conversation on beer, university life and life in general.
But more specifically on beer.
Birthday Boy was talking about how the bar at his university has a deal with Grolsch Brewery since the brewery was in his university town. Birthday Boy said that when he was there, beer cost 0.70 euros and when he left, the price was raised 0.75 euros.
0.70 euros
0.70 euros
That’s about AUS$1.00 or S$1.20.
AUS$1.00 for a pint of beer!
It’s stuff like this that makes me want to fly to the Netherlands. Ironically, Birthday Boy is doing the exact opposite, he doesn’t want to go back.
Anyway, back to beer. As I was pulling my lower jaw from the floor, Birthday Boy was talking about how he drank the beer throughout his university life and how all the the university students kept buying round after round because it was so cheap. Then the conversation slowly moved onto the topic of girls.
Birthday Boy: “The thing about having cheap beer is that the girls drink a lot too. And the more they drink, they become more…” (stretches out his hands across his body).
I saw his gesture and nodded knowingly. “Ah, they become more open.”
Birthday Boy: (Grimaces) “Well… I don’t actually mean that. They become more….” (stretches out his hands further).
At this point, I was wondering what exactly did he meant. Then, everything fell into place. “Oh… you mean… damn… the calories….”
Birthday Boy: “Yeah.”
No wonder the poor guy wants to escape the Netherlands.
Zareth Writes At 