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Month: December 2005

Try ecto. It’s rilly, rilly good

Picture 2-2I like being able to compose blog posts even when I’m not online – though that’s quite seldom. And while you could use any old text editor or word processor to compose and format your posts, you’d still have to do a bit of cutting, pasting or clicking here and there.

So I’ve been using blogging client software for a bit now – beginning with w.bloggar (Windows only), and for the past half year, with this nifty little one for both Mac and Windows, called ecto. There are sweet little script functions that allow you to add technorati tags, iTunes info, Amazon IDs, paste iPhoto pictures and customise a whole lot of other things to make blogging easier, so that when you’re blogging, you’re concentrating on your content, and not about formatting.

Picture 3-3ecto also works with almost every single blog engine that I know, or are worth knowing – Blogger, Typepad, WordPress, Livejournal – so it means you can keep track of and post to several blogs, just from the one application. Good hor?

So, if you’re still logging on to Blogger or wordpress.com, and regularly losing half-done blog posts because your mother came into the room and pulled the modem plug out to vacuum the floor, I reckon now’s as good a time as any to check ecto out.

Any connection dead or alive between this software review and this blog being named ecto-powered blog of the week is purely coincidental. But thank you ecto! You is rawks!

iTunes is playing an illegal copy of The Christmas Song from the album “2046 Original Soundtrack” by Nat King Cole And The Nat King Cole Trio of which I have the original CD.

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Even Hay Mee Men get the blues

The working days between Christmas and New Year’s is either called ‘Nothing Week’, or ‘Nonsense Week’ by some of my more unfortunate friends. Those who have to work, that is.

(Those who are on vacation – Nabeh, fark orf!)

If you haven’t already experienced it, you’d have discovered these past days that work has been really, like, you know, a lot, you know? And like, you know, wah lao, come from everywhere, like, you know?

You’d also have known that if you didn’t plan every hour of these types of days, you’d forget to eat and sleep. So it was a very good thing the past couple of days that I had the good sense to plan (to buy) dinner.

At the Zion Road Food Centre tonight, I had a craving for soup noodles, so I looked around for a stall that sold the stuff. Then I was reminded that there was that Famous Prawn Noodle (Hay Mee) Stall there, at Zion Riverside Food Centre, where there’s also the Famous Char Kuay Teow Stall, the Famous Wonton Mee Stall, and the Famous Rojak Stall.

As I stood in front of the stall, the Hay Mee Man looked up from behind the glass pane and asked what I wanted. I said in Mandarin, ‘Big Prawn Noodles‘.

I swear, he sighed when he asked again, ‘Those are $15. You still want?‘

I asked for the ‘Not So Big Noodles’, which were $10. And as he halved the (still rather) large prawns and boiled them in the pot of stock, he muttered something about ‘business no good these days’.

That probably meant I wasn’t gonna be able to ask for an extra prawn.

Zion Road Prawn Noodle SoupHe went on to talk about how he had wasted money on advertising, and that it didn’t help his business any. Good thing at this point, the soup noodles were done, and I had to take my dinner, which was very yummy, by the way.

After I was done, I popped by Hay Mee Man’s stall again and asked if I could take a picture of him standing in front of the stall, for you know, to put online on the internet so that my friends can see it and they can come by and eat his Famous Hay Mee?

Hay Mee Man declined, saying he wasn’t ‘used to it’, so I just took a picture of the stall.

‘Ask your friends to come and try lah’, he went on.

‘Yah, that’s why I’m putting this up on the web’, I said.

‘Aiyah, no use one lah, I try before’, he sighed, again.

Zion Road Prawn Noodle Soup
Stall 13, Zion Riverside Food Centre – Ignore the prices on the board, thems are for the midget prawns

iTunes is playing an illegal copy of Frosty The Snowman from the album “The Very Best Of Christmas Favourites” by Roy Hargrove/Christian McBride of which I have the original CD.

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Good tidings to you

There was a thunderstorm and a little bit of flooding at Holland Village, enough to make walking to the supermarket too difficult. But thankfully, there were other places to shop at, and Christmas Eve dinner was saved.

Holland Village Shopping Centre FloodChip Bee Gardens catHolland Village Shopping Centre FloodPissing down seriously
Holland RoadNot happyFlash flood!Flash flood
Flash floodBunalun Chip Bee GardensChristmas Eve Dinner: Fillet Steak with miso butter on mashed peas and asparagusChristmas Eve Dinner: Beetroot + Pumpkin Soup

After the rain, the feast

Mr Miyagi’s Christmas Menu:

  • Pumpkin + Beetroot = Soup
  • Fillet Steak with Aubergine and Asparagus with Miso Butter on Mashed Peas
  • Poached Pears with Vanilla Ice-Cream and Maple Syrup and Walnuts

    • iTunes is playing an illegal copy of Happy Xmas (War is Over) from the album “del.icio.us/tag/system:filetype:mp3” by John Lennon of which I have the original CD.

    Video: Still getting wet despite having a car

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    O Christmas Tree

    Fld 60Pc 2 Chr Vintage Fldv1 Gacr G C0A80 60PcSome time ago, I spent Christmas Eve in London, cooking a dinner of grilled salmon on pasta, followed by a dessert of cherries and then a bottle of Scotch. It snowed that night, and quite heavily too. I woke up Christmas morning to take out the trash and fell on my backside on the iced-over pavement.

    I wish I had a blog then. Then I’d remember at a click on the archives exactly what I did, and paraphrase a coupla more paragraphs than just the measly one. Or I could simply just put a link there. Like so:

  • 2003
  • 2004

    • .

    P.S. Mum’s put up a real Christmas tree again in the living room, so the place smells of pine (and the dead tree will be a bitch to dispose of later).

    O Tannenbaum

    O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
    Wie treu sind deine Blätter.
    Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,
    Nein, auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.
    O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
    Wie treu sind deine Blätter.
    O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
    du kannst mir sehr gefallen.
    Wie oft hat nicht zur Weihnachtszeit
    Ein Baum von dir mich hoch erfreut.
    O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
    du kannst mir sehr gefallen.

    O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
    dein Kleid will mich was lehren:
    die Hoffnung und Beständigkeit
    gibt Trost und Kraft zu aller Zeit.
    O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
    dein Kleid will mich was lehren.

    O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
    dein Kleid will mich was lehren:
    die Hoffnung und Beständigkeit
    gibt Trost und Kraft zu aller Zeit.
    O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
    dein Kleid will mich was lehren.


    Surf stop: Vintage Christmas Cards

    iTunes is playing an illegal copy of Looks Like December from the album “The Very Best Of Christmas Favourites” by Antônio Carlos Jobim of which I have the original CD.

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