Just Once.

The end product of yesterday's baking class. Chocolate Blackforest Cake.

Pretty, but as the title of my post suggests, some things can only be made once. The Blackforest cake is one of them. Actually, all went well till it came to the creaming part.

Because the cake was a chocoloate sponge, each time the cream hit a bit of the sponge area, my white cream gets peppered with tinge of brown. The same happened to Dr Lee and Ms Troublesome, so our creaming session was peppered with, "Shit, got black black thing!", or "Aiyah the black black thing come out again!". (Actually, it's brown. I don't know why we said black.)

Then, to cover up the brown parts, I added more cream. And then because I couldn't even out the cream, my cake became a little lop-sided.

But the final outcome looks good ya? That's only because I got help from Chef Pang. :s

I think the Durian Cake's another one that falls into this category. Perhaps only Cooking Girl can do this creaming shit. :)

The Bestie's Hatch Day

So the Bestie's turned 29.

Here's the denial via sms...

Purples: Hey! Happy 29th! Last year of the decade huh? :P

The Bestie: Thanks. Who says I'm 29? Pls! heh.

29 or not, I sure hope you had a great, first birthday as a non-swinging-single with The Husband. :)

Green Fingers....

I so do not have them.

My colleague has pots and pots of African Violets in purple, pink and white. They're quite pretty, so I decided to get a pot myself.

BirdKeeper found a pot at the nursery and got it for me. Dark purple. Nice.
But in just a week, the flowers have withered and the leaves have started drooping!

My colleague told me to bring it into the office, so I did. She looked at it and said, "Not dead yet. Just weak." So now it's in the "sick bay" at the office.

Perhaps I should have taken the cue from the last plant gift I received from another colleague. It was a cactus and it died on me too. CACTUS you know.

9-pin Tap

For some reason or other, I never seem to do well at 9 pin-taps.

Perhaps the strikes comes too easily and it becomes all too common.

And for those who usually have difficulty sparing pin 10 or pin 7 or any other one pin left standing for that matter, are spared, as it's a strike anyways.

I should just stop taking part in 9-pin taps.

Pleasure Factory...

... has to be the worst movie I've caught. Ever.

The couple next to us was mumbling throughout the show. And when RT turned to look at them, the guy went, "Wah...cao nan kan!"

RT kept punctuating the show with comments like, "Wah, this is damn bad la." and "If it were not you who asked me to watch it, I sure scold the person I tell you." and "Ah, now the guy will take 10 minutes to buy a drink from the vending machine la!" and "How come they can allow such a show to screen ah?"

Luckily there was Ananda Everingham.

Even then, I don't know what his purpose in the show was.

The Very Long Weekend

It began on Friday. And it just ended.

Today is Monday. Again.

But it was an extremely good weekend.

Here's what I accomplished:

Friday:
10am: Took the dogs to the beach
2pm: Went to make glasses with my aunt
4pm: Went shopping for a gift for my cousin's birthday on Saturday
730pm: Went for grandma's 83rd birthday dinner celebration
11pm: Met the girls for coffee
3am: Sleep

Saturday:
10am: Did a run from home to the seafood centre at east coast and back
130pm: Attended my cousin's 10th birthday party
445pm: Made it to sunset mass
730pm: Mahjong
1am: Sleep

Sunday:
11am: Tennis at NSRCC
325pm: Caught the worst movie ever!
730pm: Sleep!!!!

I think I overdid the exercise part and konked out at 730pm on Sunday.

And it's Monday. Again.

Going Hawaiian

The yearly gala dinner is here again.

Tonight, the venue was in ulu land - Mandai Orchid Gardens. I reckon the only reason it was selected was because it was just that....U.L.U. So nobody could run off halfway. If you didn't drive, the only ways out were to wait for the company-chartered buses or to call a cab, if you could get one to come in, that is. I have RT to thank for picking me up.

Much as we all gripe about having to attend such company functions AFTER work, this one turned out quite fun after all.

The theme was Hawaiian. Hence the transformation of the orchid garden into a Hawaiian village.

What saved the night had to be the costume parade, which had male colleagues cross-dressed in hula skirts and bikini tops, a Mr Pomelo Andersen who donned two HUGE pomelos as a bikini top, a killer whale, a hawaiian mummy, a loan shark, a geisha who under the kimono had a sexy bikini, a tribal warrior...

Here's a peek at the line up of the contestants.

They could have hopped across to the Night Safari (just down the road) and fitted right in. :p