Quirkie Pictures of the Day

Photographic evidence of strange people in my life. This is my colleague and my good friend's boyfriend :P His job does not involve scaring people, don't worry.

This is the appreciative guy whose desk we wrapped up :P LOL!

I really have strange friends!

Oh No.

The Great Singapore Sale is starting very, very soon.

This is not good. This is very bad news for my bank account, wallet and wardrobe. (Two of them are gonna shrink and then implode from the vacuum, the other third just explode from all the additional pressures from within. Guess which?)

*whimper* ... help!

Confessions

Much as you might find this incredibly hard to believe, trust me when I say that I, QuirkieKai, am no angel.

In fact, my colleague (let's call him A) once cried out in fear when I shared with him a diabolical plan, saying "You're EVIL! EVIL! Stay out of this!" However, not everyone shared the same sentiments as him. Some thought that the Diabolical Plan was actually A Very Good Idea. See, someone (let's call him B) left his keys on his vehicle and A found it. A passed the keys to me, saying "Hey help me keep this. I want to disturb B for leaving it on his vehicle", to which I readily agreed. But, I thought, what's the point of keeping the keys when the vehicle is obviously safe? If you want to disturb someone, do it and do it well! Hide the vehicle rather than the keys! The office was divided on this issue. Some cried bloody murder, others were gleefully rubbing their hands together saying "Yessss, let's...."

Well, in the end we took the vehicle out for a spin without telling my colleague (it's my company's vehicle, not his, don't worry;) ). No one in the office was supposed to tell him, too. He came back, was looking for the keys, then started looking for the vehicle, then... Suffice it to say that if I had ribbed him about it when we came back, he would've beaten me to a pulp :P

Today, one of my colleagues is returning from his 2 week's reservice. We are all waiting with bated breath for his return. Because we have wrapped up every.single.thing. on this desk. And under. And his desk, too. *muahahahahaha*

This magnificent work was done by many enthusiastic saboers who would saunter over after lunch or when they need a break and wrap whatever was available, over a period of 2 weeks. Whose idea was it? Umm.. it's the precipitate of many emails and jokes flying around in the office before said colleague left for reservice.
Colleague 1: "Shall we...?"
Colleague 2: "If you're on, I'm on!"
Colleague 3: "I think it's a great idea..."
Colleague 2: "I don't mind leh!"
so when someone said "YES!", it didn't take long before everyone caught the vision and plunged headlong into the mission (^-^)v

There is, however, a climate of fear hanging thickly in the air now. No one dares to go for a long holiday anymore. Nope. Not anytime soon.

Mushrooms

As I have been indulging in too much good food recently, I thought I would eat something light for lunch today. Half a packet of mushrooms and some slices of bread have been languishing for want of attention in my kitchen, so I thought I'd just use whatever was available.

Fresh button mushrooms are wonderful emergency food. They taste tonnes better than canned button mushrooms (ugh, what a way to spoil them!) and are just as easy to use. Chop it all up and toss them into cream sauce for creamy mushroom pasta (duh...). Saute them in garlic for a light side dish to any meal. Add them into cheese sandwiches for an instant oomph! The light fragrance and juiciness of these fresh mushrooms are all lost when canned, not to mention that canned mushrooms probably come along with a whole host of preservatives, so I like to use fresh ones whenever possible.

After chopping up the mushrooms, I tossed it with some salt, olive oil, garlic and dried basil and baked it for 5min on low heat. Dump the mushrooms between two slices of buttered toast with cheese and you've got yourself a light and healthy (I think it's still healthy, despite adding cheese and butter) lunch ^-^

Unfortunately I took a little too long posing the sandwich for the shot, so my sandwich was less warm than I'd have liked it to be. How silly ^_^b

The Greatest Battle...

... lies within.


Have you watched Spiderman 3 yet? If not, what are you waiting for? This is one movie that is worth the ticket price, even if it's on a weekend and you get chopped like a carrot whose fate involves a stew. If anyone knows where to get the comics (soft copy or otherwise), please let me know! I would love to read about the original plots!

These spiderman figurines are on my (brand new) fridge*. My mum bought these. Yes, my mum. She bought both of them and was mighty pleased with her purchase. I did her the favour of rearranging them to imitate the movie posters one night before I slept, much to her amusement and glee ("This morning when I saw the fridge, I laughed til my sides ached!"). Small things like that make my mum very happy :P

(*: This morning my dad was complaining about having to replace a fridge "for the sake of Haagen Daz". Well now, that certainly puts things into perspective :P)

Red, Sweet, Juicy.

One of the best desserts in the world: a slice of ripe, red dragon fruit, chilled and naturally sweetened.
How to eat: Chomp, chomp, chomp. And it's gone! ^^ Don't forget to wipe the red juice off your mouth if you don't want to look like Count Dracula.

Quirkie Phone-call for the Day

My responsibilities at work includes taking some phone calls, among other things. As with any other business and organizations, we get our share of kooky phone calls and nuisance callers.

For example, during my first week at work, I had to pick up a call during lunch time while everyone else was out.
Me: Hello, XYZ company!
He: HELLO! WHERE IS THE FOOD! (in Hokkien, which i totally cannot speak.)
Me: *stammering in Chinese* The food will be there soon, uncle.
He: WHERE IS EVERYBODY? HUH? HUH? CAN YOU SPEAK HOKKIEN? I WANT TO SPEAK TO SOMEONE WHO SPEAKS HOKKIEN!
Me: *looks around haplessly...* Errr... Uncle, got no one...
He: WHERE IS EVERYBODY HUH? HUH? HUH? WHAT DO YOU ALL DO ONE HUH? ALWAYS NO ONE AROUND!!
Me: They are...
*click. doot dooot... doot dooot..*

1 min later... repeat above conversation.

3 min later... Variation:
He: YOU AGAIN! GO AND DIE! *Slams! fone down*

5 min, 10 min & 12 min later, repeat above.

I was traumatized and shaken by the verbal abuse, until I learnt from my colleagues that he is a lonely old man who likes to call and routinely abuses everyone who cannot speak Hokkien. At least it's nothing personal :P

And there's another lady who's on medication and comes here every now and then.
She: Hello, I am Amy Wong Ah Mei*. May I speak to Jane Chew* please?
Me: I'm sorry she's not in, can I take a message?
She: Who are you? What's your name?
Me: .... Quirkie.
She: Quirkie ah, I tell you ah, I'm very smart one leh. You know ah, I like to think of ways to help companies save money. The other day, I called them you know, and I recommended them to blahblahblahblahblah....
And so she goes on until the 10c worth of 3min call is ended by the unceremonious BEEP, BEEP, BEEEEEEEP *click*.

Then there's this stalker guy who calls and always asks for a lady counsellor and tells a loooong sob story, but stops short at making counselling appointments. And each time he calls, his story is different. And when refered to a male counsellor, he hangs up. HMMM. So now we've wizened up and always refer him to a male counsellor, teeheehee ; )

So today, this phone call started out normally enough. Lady looking for a job as a counsellor, could the person in charge please return her call.

Me: Ok. What's your name, please?
She: I'm Gerald*.

@_@



* Names have been changed to protect the uh, innocents.

Aggravating...

... is when you're submitting a form with confidential information thru' e-filing (and they'll give you a pin at the end of the application...), and you click "print" to print the resulting document (with the pin numbers and all the confi info) the browser decides to HANG. And therefore you have to END THE PROGRAMME ("sorry, all unsaved information will be lost. would you like to report this error to Microsoft?" NO, NON, NIEN, dammit!). and you have to redo that lengthy form and dig out all that stoopid info all over again. Except that this time, the browser decides to get all sulky and takes an eternity to load every darn page.

And so you restart your computer.

Totemo baka desu.

A Tragedy of Comic Proportions

This is a rather belated story, but it bears telling, even if it's all now in the past.

April was my mum's birthday and she received a Haagen Daz discount voucher (30%!). Being the wonderful mum that she is, she decided to give my family a treat and bought 2 tubs of delectable ice-cream, a box of chocolate-almond coated coffee ice-cream sticks and another box of wafer ice-cream, all from the Venerable Haagen Daz. Now, I don't actually have anything against Haagen Daz's ice cream per se, I just find them expensive and their ice-cream parlour's offerings are waaay overpriced. If my mum could get them at a good discount, I'm happy to shelve my complaints and binge on them ^-^

Being the good kids that we were, my brother and I tried to restrict ourselves and rationed out the Strawberry Cheesecake ice-cream and the Chocolate Cookie ice-cream (drooooolzz.....). Do you know what a treat it is, to be able to help yourself to half a cup of the chocolate drug after a satisfying home-cooked meal, or to come home from a tiring day, and you perk yourself up with a few mouthfuls of sweet and uber shiok strawberry cheesecake ice-cream? Oooooo.... heaven in a fridge!!

One day, my mum and I decided to buy Subway sandwiches for dinner and to indulge in ice-cream after that--the perfect dinner for lazy evenings. We did just that and were so looking forward to the dessert to end it on a sugar-high note. I took out the precious chocolate cookie drug from the freezer and dug my spoon greedily into the tub... only to realise that my spoon went thru the cream like a hot knife through butter! The ice-cream had gone soft! Oh no oh no oh no... Who was the last person who ate ice-cream? ME! Did I not close the fridge properly last night?? Oh dear! Was it really me?? Did my brother eat some last night? I hope he did, so that I can pass the blame onto him! Oh no! What will my mum say?!

Glumly, I turned to my mum and said, "The ice-cream is soft... the fridge was not closed properly..." She was angry, shocked and frustrated.
She: "Who was the last person to eat the ice-cream?!"
Me: "me..."
She: "Did you not close the fridge properly last night?!"
Me: ".... i thought i did!"
She: "You see! Now the ice-cream all soft already! I hope the meat in the fridge is ok!"

And so I went to bed without dessert that night... =(

The next day, the ice-cream was still soft. And the day after next. We can only conclude that the fridge has gone kaput. Oh woe is us... the timing! Why does it have to be during our Haagen Daz season? Why? And during that week, my grandma passed us a lovely piece of braised pork belly to be enjoyed during dinner... is it all going to be trashed now? All these good food... it's such a sin =(

My dad just came back from a long overseas posting the week when my fridge died. He was like "Why is it everytime I come back something will spoil?!" and his statement is true. The last time he came back from an overseas posting, the bulb in the toilet fused (that very day!) and he had to rescue his family from dark toilet times by replacing the bulb, something that only he can do. This time, it's the fridge.

So anyways, my parents got busy measuring the fridge, sourcing for a good model then sourcing for a good price. Finally, they settled on one and went about shifting the old fridge to make way for the new. They also cleared out the junk that has accumulated. At this point, it has been 1 week since the fridge started ailing. It's not entirely dead--just that the freezer is as cold as the fridge, which is definitely not cold enough for ice-cream. However, we just couldn't bring ourselves to throw away the ice-cream.. maybe it can be resurrected by the new fridge? Maybe we can make milk-shakes? Maybe if we keep it in long enough, it will miraculously refreeze??

After clearing the fridge, my parents discovered that the freezer compartment got colder and colder... and realised the the fridge is not spoiled after all! -_-b . . . The vent is merely blocked by the boxes of ice-cream!! *faint*

So now, we have a brand new fridge, and the ice-cream is still intact in the freezer compartment. Emotionally, we are still a bit scarred by the experience of soggy ice-cream. However, I'm sure it won't be long before we dig deep into the goodness of Haagen Daz after dinner once more...

Tomato Sauce

This is a simple recipe to make great tomato sauce for any tomato based pasta.
Ingredients:
- 4 or 5 tomatoes
- 1 white onion
- 2 cloves of garlic (smashed)
Condiments:
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt (you can add more if you like...)
- some pepper
- a sprinkling of sugar
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- Italian spices (thyme, basil, whatever you like.. we use some thyme and basil.)

Chop up the tomatoes and onions, toss in all the condiments. Bake in the oven for about 40min. You might want to turn the tomatoes every now and then to make sure they don't burn (at least for my convection oven, we need to do that...).

After that, viola! You've got a really tasty tomato sauce to eat with your pasta. For this meal, my brother had some fish and squid stir fried in this yummy sauce to make our own seafood marinara. It's a light and comforting meal to eat after a series of unhealthy meals (read: BBQ with lots of chicken nuggets and sausages. :P)