Man I miss my dog....

..... and my yellow bed too of course. My li'l sis just sold it to her friend...

No buyers for the irritating dog yet though..... any takers?

Big Big April!

Well at least my tai-tai-wannabe fiancee is not turning this into a food blog anymore yeah? Hahaha...

Anyways, this coming April is a very very big month for me... for very different reasons of course.

Big Big Birthdays
Aside from celebrating the birthday of the smartest and wittiest person I know, MYSELF of course, there's also the small matter of my Bride-to-be's birthday. Not many of you know this but in the past 11 years that we've been together, I have amazed (maybe the word she's looking for is DISAPPOINTED) her with the number of lame gifts that I've bought for her! Do ask her if you're really REALLY interested but anyway, I wonder if this year will be more of the same. Especially now that Coach is out of the question (she refuses to accept last week's gift as a birthday present!), it's going to be a struggle thinking of what would be a nice birthday gift for her. We'll see though... normally I see what the standard is when I get MY present first. :P

Tim's birthday: 8th April (4/8 in US date format)
Sharon's birthday: 20th April (4/20)

Send your well wishes to us via SMS through this website (my HP is 832-433-4554, Sharon's is 713-732-4331), or even give us a ring at 64922447. It's free as free can be!

Big Big Football Games
This is probably going to be the month that determines the fate of the EPL. With both United and Chelsea facing tough games and seemingly grinding out win after win, I'm pretty sure something is going to give and by the time May comes, it'll make for an exciting finale to the season.

The FA Cup semis will be held in the middle of April too and although United should be happy with the Watford draw, they'd better respect them and not count any chickens as yet. New Wembley awaits!

Champions League quarters and semis will also be settled by the end of the month and with Roma waiting and either Milan or Bayern after that, I'm hopeful that United can make it to Greece on May 23rd.

If everything falls into place, I might come back to Singapore about a week later... if ya catch my drift. ;)


"Belle - The only United fandog I ever knew!"


Big Big Wedding Planning
Last but not least, I have to finalize the plans for the Wedding of the Decade! Now that reality has set in and my wedding is just a little over 2 months away, it's about time I got things settled! It's times like these that I'm glad my family and friends are helping out with some of the stuff in Singapore (special mention goes to Edwin the WRXer and Peiwen the Quekster so far) to ensure that things are running smoothly, or at least seem to be for now. I'm starting to feel the wedding jitters, especially now that my cousins Greg and Mervyn just got hitched during the past 2 weeks too...

I'm also looking forward to seeing everyone back in Singapore very soon.. God knows how much I miss them all.... here's a friggin funny clip of some of my friends at 2002's Xmas party at zhibo's house. Found it while I was rummaging through some old stuff.... kind of explains why none of us are in the film directing / acting business now. hahaha

Reason why I can never be a tai tai….

As you all know, I have been making a living (just kidding, I am still holding on to my full-time job) by helping friends’ friends buy Coach bags…

I typically charge a nominal fee for buying the bags as a lot of time and effort are spent in getting the products; from coordinating with friends (many emails to and fro), consolidating the list of items to buy (some people can be fickle-minded), actual purchasing of the bags (this is the most tedious as the sales staff are not used to such huge purchase, go figure…), checking off the items from the list to ensure the right purchases, getting payment from these people I don’t know, to lugging the stuff all the way back to Singapore and in the process bearing the risk of losing the bags. As such, I feel that the so called service fee that I charge, between US$20 to US$25, is pretty reasonable. This is especially so since those people that are buying the bags receive a huge discount because of the “VIP” status I received for buying so many.

Without even taking the discount into consideration, the bags are already so much cheaper compared to Singapore. So this explains why when Tim told his friends that there is a Coach sale, many of his friends got him to buy the bags for him. Being the kind soul that he is, of course he did not charge his friends any service fee since those are his friends.

Well, that I feel is fine since I don’t ask my close friends to pay the service fee if they were buying the bags for themselves either. In any case, my friends only bought 1 item each unlike his friends who bought at least 2 each (seriously, I think his friends are uber rich. I certainly hope they give us fat ang pows for our wedding too. keke...). That I feel is still ok until I saw that there are people who bought bags of similar designs for themselves which set me wondering if the bags are really for themselves or are those for their friends or family. Why would anyone buy bags of the same design and not only that, buy more than just that 2 bags even if the bags are really that cheap.

So I guess I can never become a tai tai since my hubby-to-be, being such a good natured person, does not mind helping his friends get these bags at his own expense (in terms of the time, effort, and risk). But has he wondered if he had been taken advantage of? I'm sure his friends have no intention of taking advantage of him but I think some self control should be exercised here when getting someone to buy stuff for you.

Anyway, on a lighter note, check out this red t-shirt which I will never have a chance to wear:

http://www.localbrand.net/

I like the tshirts from this website. I feel that a lot of thoughts had gone into designing the tshirts. What do you think?

Woo-hoo! I passed!

Yeah! I passed my exam! 3 down 1 more to go. Given that the last paper builds on the knowledge of the first 3, I shall take it in April before I forget what I have learnt in the past year. But with the wedding coming up and workload getting heavier, I hope I will have time to study.

Kampatei!

Red Hot

Was at the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert a week ago and I must say, it was pretty good. Ranks as the 3rd best concert I have been to ever since I came here, behind Coldplay and Nickelback of course.

Those of you who are from my era (yes, it makes me sound old) will know RHCP pretty well and I'm pretty amazed at how such an old band, despite changes to their band members and also the music scene in general, have managed to stay in the game with catchy rock-pop tunes that you can listen to over and over again.

Here's a couple of videos to make you GIAN in case they ever come to Singapore...


"My fave song - Californication"



"Dani California - is it THAT easy to run out of ideas for song names?"

The Jester Hat.

For those of you who have been asking me about the Jester Hat on my display pic and why I have it, here's your answer. Knock yourself out.




A great start to a great New Year at New Orleans. Here's hoping it's the same for all of you out there! (and YES I know I am 3 months late.)

COACHED out.

"A Mountain of Coaches"

Argh! I've been on a blogging hiatus for months and what do I see when I come back? Food, food, food and more food!!! Ok ok, the name of my blog is still TIMSUM, but that STILL doesn't justify Sharon's overhauling of this site into a FOOD BLOG! Hence, I shall now start with a post with something that you ladies out there will definitely enjoy.

For those of you who've placed orders with either Sharon or myself, you can try spotting them in this little pic up here.

Just for the record, we spent almost $3k USD in total to get all this for y'all, so we hope it provides you with many, many years of joy and happiness.




Ok maybe weeks... up till the next 25% sale that is.

Finally...

It’s been a long while since I last blogged. Been busy studying for my third paper which I took last weekend at LA. I’m keeping my fingers crossed…this is the toughest of the three papers I took so far…Well, I will know the results in a few weeks’ time. So for now, I shall concentrate on….preparing…..DINNER (not wedding, sorry Tim)….

Bak Kwa





Finally, here’s a pic of the bak kwa I made before CNY…Although not as good as those sold in stores, but at least we still got a taste of some CNY goodies…and it is pretty easy to make too….

Steam egg





Here’s my pockmarked steam egg with pork. Can’t see the pork? It is underneath the egg lar…Not sure how to get rid of those holes in the egg though. Anyone has any idea?


Bak Kut Teh

Every time I make Bak Kut Teh, I would throw in lotsa vege like Chinese lettuce, golden mushrooms, and canned mushrooms so that I don’t have to cook other dishes. Chao geng lei…


Lotus root soup

This is one of my favorite soups. It’s been a while since I last cooked it. So I have already bought the ingredients to cook it this week. Yeah!


Mee rebus


Too little gravy, too much noodles, and even more tau gay…5 of us had to share two packets of Prima Taste mee rebus premix, so we had to ration our gravy.

Curry

Yep, it is curry again. Now have I proven my point that I absolutely love CURRY??!!


Fried bee hoon

Here’s my version of Spore noodles aka xing zhou mi fen which I made yesterday… Do you know that the Spore noodles sold here have curry powder sprinkled all over? I have never tasted that in Spore before. How weird?!

Oatmeal Prawns

Finally, here comes Oatmeal Prawns. I have been patiently waiting for Zing to make cereal prawns using the cereal prawns premix she brought from Singapore since last year. She finally cooked it over the weekend. But I didn’t get a chance to savor it as I was taking my exam in LA. So when I came back, I decided to make my own.

Since I didn’t bring any premix from Spore, I looked online for the recipe instead. Looks good yeh. It also tastes good too although the mai pian weren’t crunchy enough. I guessed it was because I used oatmeal instead of cereal. Everyone is swearing by Nestum So I shall try using Nestum next time.