Geeks are funny

Happy April Fool's. :)

Maple Festival

This Saturday we drove down to Meyersdale PA, Maple City, for the 59th Annual Maple Festival.

There was a Festival Park in the middle of a residential neighborhood with food, live entertainment, crafts, and more food. We scarfed down a hot dog each while watching high schoolers tap-dance, before checking out the local crafts displays. A Maple Festival is not the same without seeing how maple syrup is made; a maple tree stood in a corner with buckets hugging the trunk to collect sugar water. It was pretty fascinating, seeing a tree 'bleed' like that.


Tree tapping; Maple syrup cooking on a brick stove

We walked through a log cabin area that housed a huge vat of sugar water, that was being gradually boiled down into maple syrup. 40 or so gallons of that stuff only yielded a gallon or two of syrup, I think. It takes 8 hours to make maple syrup for an old-fashioned factory, but only 1 hour for a high-tech mass manufacturer. As we continued on, different maple products were featured, with a chance to sample them. Our favorite...


Spotza!

Spotza is maple syrup reduced into a taffy-like consistency, poured over shaved ice (snow) while piping hot. It's a classic Dutch treat - very yummy! It reminded me of mai ya tang (Chinese malt candy), but there was a distinct maple flavor. The other cool maple products we liked were maple sugar, and sugar cakes.


Bucket full o' maple sugar cakes

I had a great time, even though I felt a little funny being there. It was an all-white small rural Pennsylvania town - I was stared at by more people than if I pulled my pants down in the middle of downtown Pittsburgh. Other than two little Asian girls (cuteness!), who were probably adopted, I was the only Asian around for miles. Who knows, they might've thought I was the daughter of a Chinese buffet owner in the next town. E speculated that they could've been more uncomfortable/curious because I was with him; it's not every day they see a mixed couple. As unnerving as the stares were, it was kind of funny at the same time... like walking into a saloon in the Wild West, with swinging doors and all, hushing everyone. *cue tumbleweed* Howdy, stranger.

Didn't haul jugs of syrup back with us, but I've renewed affection for maple.. stuff.

In other news, we're done with taxes! (woot)

Only in the city

There was a bit of excitement in town today - during lunch, as the officemates were discussing the double standards held to different genders in teacher-student scandals, the senior clerk (who listens to the radio while he works) burst into the room, exclaiming, "Sniper!"

There were reports of a sniper in one of the buildings downtown (a la Phone Booth). Entire sections of the business district were closed, people were herded inside buildings and not allowed on the streets... The SWAT team was there. Everyone wondered what the commotion was about with the choppers and sirens, and now it made sense. Productivity dropped a good 40% as people stood around speculating what happened. All the local news websites crashed my browser when I tried visiting them, from the heavy traffic I suppose. It was an odd coincidence that the President was just in Wheeling, WV earlier in the day, not far from here, with hundreds of security personnel standing by for all of the 15 minutes he was there. Still, there was no reason for the two to be related - why would a sniper be in downtown Pittsburgh on a Wednesday afernoon? Who among us is that interesting of a hit?

After all the tension, frantic media, hours of being stuck inside, hundreds of cars rerouted, closing the tunnels, SWAT team mobilized and ready to go, the afternoon ended in an anti-climax, to say the least. The police found out the bearded man wearing camo with a sniper rifle was simply a maintenance guy with his pellet gun shooting pigeons. Ha!! What a joke. The funniest part of the whole thing was that the guy who caused the big deal managed to walk away, oblivious and unnoticed. 'Excellent' longtime employee of the city or not, this guy is about as smart as someone who waves around a toy gun on a commercial flight. And I have so much more faith now in the competence of our local authorities...

What a day.

---------------------------------------------
Unrelated: We had dinner at Nakama. It was much like the Big Burrito group - upscale, trendy, cool concept, good food. Parking was a pain in the butt. I made reservations through OpenTable; it's one of very few local joints listed on the site. (We need more cool places, less chains.) Young crowd, not family-friendly. Lots of well-to-do types and wannabes with their martinis... and then there are dorks like us, that stick out like a sore thumb. :P I took E out this time, and he reciprocated with dessert at our favorite ice-cream shop around the corner. Yummy!

Out of juice

iPod, cell phone, me.

I need a nap...

*disgruntled*

Skin deep

From Glenn: My Heritage face recognition software. Neat stuff, it got me scrounging around for photos of myself. I'm willing to bet that most people don't really care about their genealogy, but instead make a beeline for the celeb lookalike demo, like I did. :) In my results, there were some disturbing matches like with Madonna and Zhang Ziyi (I hate her!); other matches were Katie Leung (who?), Rachel Bilson (huh?), Halle Berry, and Keira Knightley. The most consistent high-scoring celebrity match was Kristin Kreuk - must be the Indonesian Chinese connection. :)


I look like a plain Jane next to her! I'm obviously nothing like them or I'd be in Hollywood making the big bucks, eh?

Tomorrow E has a hot date with not one, but two coeds. It used to be just this one chick, until she said her friend wanted to tag along on their afternoon rendezvous as well. Meanwhile, I'll be lunching with one of the IT guys at work this week, again. Purely platonic on all sides all around, but it carries undertones of this article (mentioned previously). It's something we've been discussing rigorously of late, and while we've temporarily ruled it out as a Bad Idea, it would keep us on our toes and reintroduce the thrill of the chase... whatever that means.

Anyway, my 'work boyfriend' and I will probably just talk about work (how romantic), but something tells me E's going to have a harrowing time with the girls tomorrow. Chick #1 originally introduced herself as Christian - not just any Christian, but one who was once Catholic, renounced that faith and has recently embraced Christianity. (?!?) This obviously didn't make any sense to E, the recovering Catholic (been there, done that, now an atheist), so he asked why. A few questions later, he realized she had absolutely no idea what she was doing and 'converted' for all the wrong reasons. She spoke of it the same way she did of joining her sorority; it was 'something to do'. She was visibly uncomfortable about theological debates, and she's got a bone to pick with him, so I'm guessing that Chick #2 is reinforcement. Two to one, and maybe they'll convince E to go to bible study with them (good luck).

My other theory is that Chick #2 wants to meet this mythical wonder, the married-but-still-lunching-with-other-chicks guy. Either way, I can't wait to hear the juicy stories tomorrow.

Quote of the evening
Peter: “Let me ask you something. When you come in on Monday and you're not feeling real well, does anyone ever say to you, 'Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays?'”
Lawrence: “No. No, man. Shit, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked sayin' something like that, man.”
- Office Space (1999)

Everyone wants to be Irish

Happy St. Patty's!

In the spirit of the holiday, I wore a little shamrock around today. Missed out on green beer though, which is a total shame. Unlike many others, I didn't get my drink on at 10am.

While everybody was out at pubs pretending to be Irish, Lauren and Obi came over for Indonesian fare and great conversation. They brought a New Zealand aperitif to go with dinner (goes quite well with Asian) and a little mouse toy to bribe kitty with. Among the night's topics were Dilbert land (work and the brilliant minds at work), $100,000 football pools, the new monogamy and loaded hypothetical questions, Tahiti and Nicaragua, recovering Catholics, Amish kids in reality TV shows, orange cola, mother-in-laws, learning Chinese with kid's textbooks (complete with big colorful pictures and giant fonts), neat gadgets, and hicks. They were a hoot.

I missed watching 'House' tonight, but I'll live.

Gokujou Parodius!

I miss this game sorely. Good ole' 16-bitty horizontal shooter. Then I found it serendipitously - I'm waiting impatiently for E to set it up on ZSNES.



EDIT: My first game of Parodius in years! It's as good as I remembered it. :) (My little Pentaro!)

IB is un-American, anti-Christian?

I'm embarrassed that this is happening where I live.

The gist: a local high school just decided to abolish the International Baccalaureate program because board members claim the program goes against 'Judeo-Christian' values. Now they're shifting the focus to the budget and financial issues, but it won't stop 10 families from filing a lawsuit.

Michelle Pilecki, a local writer, did a short piece on HuffPo that has some good links - worth a read-through. Here's a news article that pretty much covers the bigotry... I mean, story.

Mondays suck...

... big hairy donkey balls. And the suckitude feeds itself - people are crabby cos the weekend is over, so they're jerks, and that makes you crabby, and then you become an ass and make everyone unhappier. It never ends. The one redeeming thing about Mondays is for that one day during the week, everyone feels a secret bond with each other for sharing the same sentiment (ie. Mondays suck).

After a very blah day at the office, I drove to E's workplace to pick him up since it was raining... thought it'd be a cute surprise. Turned out he was in a meeting (should've called), so I sat in the parking lot for an hour. Watched people walk in and out of the building, making plans, arguing, laughing. Seeing the mundaneness of it all made me feel better. E finally got out and we decided it was a good day for pizza, so we headed to Mineo's. Best in town! Rounded dinner with ice-cream from the good ole' fashioned parlor next door.

The best part of the day was coming home; there's nothing that could make anyone feel better than seeing this cutie:



*sigh* :)

Foodie roll call

Cleaning out the camera's memory card this afternoon, the pics reminded me of how strong my passion for food is. Let's just say that come hell and high water, I'd still be dreaming of food. During the one week I was sick, I managed to conjure up more yummies than my lazy self would be inclined to do on any other week. Granted, they tend to be comfort food that reminds me of home, the first thing anyone with a cold needs, but it's no easy feat working in the kitchen under the dismal condition I was in. Maybe I was just sick of E's mac 'n cheese and canned soups. ;)


Rice porridge, of course. Made in the style of secondary school canteen, with dong cai, minced pork, scallions, white pepper, and egg buried under the steaming hot soupy goodness.


Wonton noodles, with homemade shrimp wontons (dough from scratch, the whole nine yards). Thin egg noodles topped with yu choy, shiitake mushrooms, and oyster sauce, sorta like at Crystal Jade.


This... I don't know. It's just a 'nasi campur', everything with rice.


Potstickers, or guo tie, grandma's recipe. Lined in neat little rows, waiting for the pan to heat up. To be dipped in a mix of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, ginger, and sesame oil.

Fwah! And somehow I still lost a bit of weight from that sick spell. How 'bout that.

Links and Longhorn

Meet Boston Dynamics' toy, BigDog - despite the ominous-sounding name and purpose, it's quite cool. This real-life AT-AT has a miniature counterpart, LittleDog, which E has been eyeing hungrily for his research. It looks more like a mechanical 'roach than a dog; regardless of how it looks or its size, it has the potential for great things (since the AIBO pooped out). How ironic - BDI once invited E to work for them, and now he gets to work with them afterall.

Interesting blog post about the recent ports deal brouhaha, from a Singaporean perspective. Never even knew there was some history with PSA... Anyway, the points raised are insightful.

I just found out that a friend of an acquaintance was a contestant on Beauty and the Geek - the Rubik's Cube record holder. I don't watch the show, but reading the finalists' blurbs, the winners were kinda 'meh' - the guy isn't that geeky (a writer and museum critic?), and the babe isn't all that babe-y. The 'runners up', on the other hand, should've won the quarter million. Philosophy degree and PhD in mechanical engineering... hard core. His academically challenged partner is hotter too.

Went to Longhorn Steakhouse for dinner tonight. I was glad they didn't inflict country music on their customers. It was drizzling, and we had a 40-minute wait; we sat in the car, fogged it up, and watched people pull in the lot. Most of them were couples, some families. There were a lot of big American cars, and many blondes. We finally got seated, next to a very good-looking Asian family - E was quick to note that the 3 young girls, the oldest no more than 10, were beautiful and he hoped we'll be that lucky. :) I ordered an 11 oz. NY Strip medium rare. (I like them as bloody as they come, though I've never been bold enough to try one rare.) If I could eat a whole cow... *smacks lips* I thoroughly enjoyed the meal, it's been a while since we had steak (last Sunday). The place was a little strange (cramp, dim), but the food was yummy and the check was easy on the pocket, so I give it a thumbs up.

Watching movies and bumming on the couch... I love staying in.

Street art

Neato!! 3D sidewalk art by Julian Beever. I wish I could see one of these in person.

Of spring and stray cats

Spring weather has an early arrival - this afternoon felt like a cool summer day, it smelled delicious and I could only think of swimsuits and picnics. Flu season, on the other hand, came late - half the people around me are wheezing and hacking, absolutely miserable. Of course, not long ago I was one of them and there's no saying I won't join them again, but for now I'm glad to be up and about with a clear head. (Never underestimate the simple pleasure of being able to taste your dinner...)

Yesterday, after spending many hours and a small fortune at the laundromat, E and I were about to lug our six loads of laundry up to the apartment when I heard a wee little mewing in a distance. It came from down the street, and under the amber streetlights, I saw a little shadow scuttling down the sidewalk towards us, mewing urgently the whole way. E set down his load and walked up to pet the creature, heck with rabies and all. It had just been raining so it was kinda nippy; poor little kitty was cold and confused. Little baby must've been no older than 5 months, it had a short white coat with patches of brown and black. Desperate-looking eyes. It didn't have a collar; it was too well-groomed to be a stray, but kinda scrawny for a domestic cat. We decided we should at least carry our stuff inside first, and kitty kept following us, all the way up the stairs. Our own princess kitty was waiting for us at the foot of the steps, and she knows there's another kitty outside - good thing for the two doors between them. Pepper was restless and at attention, her tail was bushy and pointed straight up like a radar. E stayed a while to soothe her, but he kept thinking about the other cat. (Sigh, men.) So I held Pepper while E stepped outside to 'work on the lost kitty', who had been mewing at the door the whole time.

Through the glass, I could see E perched over, looking genuinely concerned, trying to figure out what to do with the cat that couldn't stop mewing at him. He came up with an idea to feed the lost kitty with the fancy cat food and sippy milk we got for Pepper. Zipping in and out with bowls of chicken livers and warm milk, E was like a busy OR tech. Pepper watched on. It was quite something to watch; E, my super alpha male, all mushy and soft for a cold, lost kitten, crouched over like a little boy.

Bringing the other cat in was a bad idea, so with a heavy heart, E left it on the porch (with food and milk) while he came back inside. I wondered if Pepper had any concept of cheating and feline polygamy, but she seemed to have forgotten by the end of the night.

Hope the kitty is okay! Wonder if we'll see it again...

Cake theft (edit)

This may be the strangest blog post I've ever written.

If you see a picture floating on the web of a yummy chocolate cake, with a single candle and "Happy Birthday Sweetie" written on it, that's somebody else pretending they have a chocolate cake. Yeah. That's MY cake. It was E's birthday cake that I bought from Four Leaves Bakery at Paragon in Singapore. (It's Chocolate Classico under the Cakes link.)

Apparently, it's one of the top hits on a certain search engine. (Who knew that cake would have a life of its own after we uploaded it?) E discovered its unusual popularity while going through his web log. It's highly amusing, yet somewhat annoying. People must've found it and figured, hey I'll post it on my blog, myspace shoutout, whatever... and pretend it's mine. Too lazy to get their own. One dude posted it on his blog in a birthday post and had people cooing about how sweet that was. I could be petty and leave a snarky comment about stealing cake pictures...

How weird, huh.

EDIT: Now a Danish photographer wants to use one of our pictures in a collage that will be printed into postcards. A Frenchman has been spamming the gallery with odd comments. A Singaporean asks which restaurant a food pic is from. Capital One viking says: What's in your photo gallery?

Sick as a dog, but...

The nice thing about a bad throat is an excuse to eat all the ice-cream I want. :)

March

My travel agent just fell off the face of the earth. This is particularly annoying when you realize February only has 28 days and all of a sudden, it's one month closer to the Big Trip. Holy cow.

I am cold. I was warm. It was in the mid-40s today, after 3 or so inches of snow yesterday. I had desperately hoped for a snow day, so I could sleep in and snuggle up with the boy (whom I hate to leave every morning). Alas, the weather was just miserable enough that I got my dress pants wet in the snow and spent 10 minutes scraping ice off the car. At least it gave me a chance to do something I've grown to love doing but don't do very often - shovel!

Now why I would despise cleaning snow off the car but look forward so to shoveling... beats me. I have to stand out in the cold either way and freeze like a popsicle, which is never fun. But the sweeping motion of a shovel, how cathartic it is see the driveway clean and flat again... ahhh. Scraping ice is an activity above the waist; snow gets everywhere, especially on black wool coats, then melts when you're in the car, leaving nasty wet surprises when you tug on your coat to keep warm. Shoveling! It's mucking around at your feet, as methodical as sweeping (dividing the area into grids and sections), perfect for the OCD-afflicted. None of the reaching and stretching around the contour of your car - just wide, flat surfaces, like spreading butter over bread. I'm still an amateur, of course, and I'm sure if either of the two men in the building watched me through the window, they would smack their foreheads. But I do it my way, and no matter how long it takes, the job gets done.

After the debauchery of Mardi Gras and Carnival, Lent begins today with Ash Wednesday. My sisters are officially Alpha Chi Omega. The sun no longer sets at 6pm. Spring collections are out in stores.

I miss a warm, humid thunderstorm.

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Happy (belated) Mardi Gras!