The Holy Trine-ity

Behold... My first experience of full-fledge coop gaming on a single PC. Actually, the game was running off my laptop, extra peripherals all hooked up to it.

Trine (3) McNugget Sauces, each for one hero.

We all hate going through tutorials

Gear up. My girlfriend and I took on our suits of armor, bows and wands, and ventured into a time of dark ages.
Trine, and awesome puzzle-action 2D platformer which offers superb graphics and sounds. Don't take this 2D concept lightly, it didn't take us long to be completely immersed in the environment, because they were all drawn with so much details. The game physics were superb too. The puzzles aren't exactly simple and straightforward too. And considering we were playing it 2-player coop, we still found it fairly challenging. Wonder how frustrating it would be for a single-player!

Sadly, no PvP. Trine supposedly merged all the souls of the 3 characters

I would just pause the game to breathe in the scenery

Coop makes puzzling more interesting, as you take non-linear methods to problem solving

Fight fight fight! Not a simple hack-n-slash. These undead have brains!

Medival's age version of Captain America

After a straight 7 hours of gameplay... WE HAVE NOT FINISHED. Thankfully, even after we are done with this, it's merely the first installment! We will await Trine 2's release in anticipation.

3Cs

Competency, Communication, Compassion
Ironically, my previous Air Force vocation was also called C3.

NomNom Adventure - Sukiyaki

Sukiyaki.
Or at least that's what my parents called it from my beginning. In actual fact, it's a poor imitation of the original. But that is what make it special, for that is my home.

Dipping meat in raw eggs. Doubt many families try that at home. I'm grateful that my parents are pretty much food lovers (my girlfriend too!), and adventurous. I'm gonna miss home cook food so badly :(

My dad's an awesome cook who stole all the recipes from my mom and improvised them :P

Secret of Monkey Island

After 4hours of mind boggling puzzles and countless number of times pacing up and down the same paths. After subjecting myself to frustration and the constant questioning of how i could ever like such games. I HAVEN'T COMPLETED THE GAME >.<

Welcome to the Secret of Monkey Island! I can't tell you the secrets just yet, because i've yet to even get to the damn island. Secret of Monkey Island is a click-based adventure game as old as i am. Born in 1990, it pioneers and pathed the market for games of its genre. And these are the kind of games i love, always presenting witty jokes, the storylines always get me cracking up. Their puzzles are so darn tough because they aren't conventionally solved. (eg. It's not simply, Wood and Sparks to get Fire).

2009 Remake version that i'm currently playing

A nifty feature: A click of a button sends you back into time, presenting its 1990 interface.

Time flashes by as i immerse mysef in these games. Sam & Max, Hector, Pepper's Adventure, King's Quest, etc.. They never fail to leave me in utter distress as i battle the temptation of succumbing to a walkthrough. But i will not, for it takes out the fun! *warning: you will be in for hours of endless pacing and clicking on every pixel in hope to find something you have missed. But most of the time, the item is already in your inventory, it's just how u were suppose to interact them with the bloody environment.

Rouge Spear

You gotta love AbandonWare websites which archive and supply good ol' games. Playing a 1999 game on a 2011 laptop can be quite awesome. Simple smooth graphics, not lumped with sophisticated controls. Best of all, playing with friends <3

Rogue Spear "Lan Party"!

One rule of oldie games is to NEVER alt+tab your programmes.

NomNom Adventure - Nann

As the hype of orientations and Rag subsides, i finally get to meet my friends for dinner. All the way to National University of Singapore... To the place where i always over-order and stuff myself with too much dough.

The radiating algae dish - Spinach and cheese. It's edible

Butter salt chicken. No idea why Blogger insist that the photo should be in Portrait.

Terry asked, "Isn't it a long walk back to KE7 hall?"
"When you finally realise that you are leaving, you start to appreciate the little things that we always complained about"
*flush toilet* I never liked having a conversation in toilet cubicles.

Portal: The Flash Game

I'm a fan of Valve's 3D puzzle game, Portal. And when i had my taste of Portal, i couldn't stop. Then it was Portal 2, such an intricate design and storyplot. Unexpected twist and crazy puzzles that sent the character (Chell) flying through a gigantic 3D environment. And when portal 2 ended with its epic story, then there was Portal: The Comic. NOT ENOUGH!

Thanks to my great friend, Uzzy. Who has been recommending games, finally found Portal: The Flash Game. And unknowingly, it had sucked 3hours from me. Sitting through all 40 levels in a single seating, i did it :D But i blame u Uzzy, for stealing my sleep again :P HAHA. On the brighter side, i'm adjusting to GMT +1.

Now i can get my cake. Yum. No Firey furnace awaits me

NomNom Adventure - Hotel Reception

This is NOT a food blog. I'm not a critic. I'm just a Singaporean who appreciates the crazy amount of food we have here, and I'm documenting them for my own visual consumption when my tummy is rumbling in Aberdeen, while all i know how to cook is Porridge and Pre-mixes.

Went to my cousin's university's welcome ceremony. She's the pioneer batch of chefs in the Singapore Institute of Technology. Quite impressive number of new batch of students, probably close to 300 polytechnic students? I loved it how they emphasized that they are in for sleepless nights and crazy workload. Because it is university. Oh Singapore, please dun dilute the joy of education!

Most important, was the Hotel's high-tea after the event. It as a jaw-dropping $55/head. Endless flow of a wide variety of food!

Finger food section - I just spammed the Sushi

Hot food. Just avoid it, the carbohydrates waste space.

Omg. Desert TOO MANY TO CHOOSE FROM.

So these 3 main tables, multiply by 5! That's the amount of food they had! I shouldn't have eaten lunch.
And of course, being a typical Singaporean, we wrapped some muffins into the handbag :) One day i shall try walking into one of this conventions/occasions without an invitation. All the food seem so wasted!

NomNom Adventure - JuJu Hokkaido Hotpot

Dating back Aug 9.
Mom decided to give both ourselves a treat after watching the National Day works blast off across the horizon of Marina Bay Sands, CBD.

Appetizers! An awesome Hard-boil egg which is soft inside.

The saucer looks egg-shaped O.o

NomNom Adventure - Frog Porridge

Pictures for my own consumption. My own memories.

They died for the right cause. 7 frogs get free plane ticket to Aberdeen!

What makes a happy family? 7 dead frogs. Great meal with my parents and girlfriend.

SlurpSlurp Adventure - Sugar Cane Water

Name: Sugar Cane Water
Location: Not available in any Hawker. If you see a shop, with a grinder and lots of Sugar Canes stacked, that's them.

Fallout 3: Radiated Water

I've realised that every single day i'm eating such interesting food that is worth blogging, that keeping to a 'one post a day' policy is causing a choke up on my archives. Nonetheless, even this unique drink is a personal favourite, so it deserves to be here.

Grinded, presses, rolled and squeezed dry, that's the fate of those sugar cane stems used to harvest this cup of greenery. The shop-keepers will make an effort to suck every moisture out of them, that the resulting pulp looks good enough to be sold at a book store as recycled paper. But really, i wonder what's the fate of all those dried fiber.

As the name goes, the juice is pretty sweet. Freshly pressed right before your very eyes, you know there are no post-processing to this drink, unlike Coca-cola. Makes u feel healthier :D.

But for a period of time, there was this odd tale saying, "Rats pee on the Sugar Cane that are in storage during the night, hence the rats pee is being absorbed, and you are drinking it!" *Shuns away. I never believed it, even when i was young and ignorant. But now I know that even if it was 'absorbed', it was through osmosis, a permeable membrane is involved and the urea and other waste products would be seperated. Well, it would be safe to drink then, if the auntie washes them first O.o

NomNom Adventure - Mee Goreng

Name: Hazel Tan Mee Goreng (aka Fried Noodles)
Location: Any Prata shop

No food can be sweeter than my girlfriend <3

The noodles are red not because they use goat's blood saved during sacrifices. It is noodles cooked with tomato sauce. So generally it has a sweet taste. I'm surprised to find myself ordering this dish time after time even though i don't have a sweet tooth and would choose 'Salty' over 'Sweet' anytime. Maybe cause i like the colour red?

Mee Goreng comes in many interesting combinations too. My indian friend taught me (but i forgot -_-) that if you wanted an additional egg, the direct translation would be 'Mee Goreng Sunshine'. Really brightens up my day.

Bee Hoon Goreng, Maggi Goreng... They should have a 'Mee Kia' and 'Mee Pok' Goreng too. But that leads me to the nxt point - NEVER order Mee Goreng from a Chinese stall. It's the taste of kitchen disaster. They cook it like any other noodle dish (eg. Hor Fun), with all their additional seafood and meat, which totally trashes how Mee Goreng should taste.

If I were to do a direct Malay-English Translation word for word. Mee = Noodles. Goreng = Fried. Hence, shouldn't it be called Noodles Fried? I guess that's why they do things really oddly most of the times.

P.S.: Remember to order a cup of teh tarik!

Blogging on the go

Cool! I'm blogging from my phone. Pretty handy tool to keep me awake on e train so tt i wouldn't miss my stop
Anyway, i won my first online auction on eBay. It was actually quite thrilling n outbidding the other poor fella in the last 30sec was quite funny. Nonetheless, finally i've settled the 'webcam for family' agenda.

NomNom Adventure - Thai Food

Name: Green Curry + Pandan Leave Chicken
Location: Nahkon Kitchen, Kovan. Not Thai Express

Food taste better when sharing!

Random lunch meet-up with Uzzy. He's gonna study in another place other than Singapore. Thai food tends to be a little pricey in any country other than Thailand, and Food Haven Singapore isn't an exception. It's hard to find authentic Thai food here too. Thankfully, i have one right at my doorstep.

Green curry is my favourite dish. Firstly, the colour is odd green for something quite spicy. And the thick coconut base makes it like soup, which is worth covering your whole rice with. A downside though, they have quite abit of weird vegetable inside, that I usually let the adults eat :P

Pandan Leave Chicken is supposedly one of their signature dishes. Well, it's nice. but not fantastic. It also disrupts the flow of eating cause u have to put down the cutlery to unwrap the chicken. Oily fingers!

Thai-tea. Thai-bucks, half as cheap and half as good as Starbucks

With thai food being so expensive, even their 'specialty' drink was ex. Imo, it got conned for this cup.

Interesting fact: Singapore's Thai Express founder was from my ex-junior college, of which i'm not superbly proud of to be from - Anderson Junior College. Their food can be pretty pricey, but if you feel like splurging, it's actually quite satisfying. Don't miss their Soft-shelled crabs and Chendol drink!

Pay for the comfort of Air-Conditioning

NomNom Adventure - Chicken Rice

Name: Hainanese Chicken Rice
Location: Pointless to say, cause Singapore is littered with hawker centres and coffee shops, and every one seems to have a chicken rice stall. The quality is in question though.

Wonder how the breed so many chickens...

Sweet succulent chicken, fragrant rice and cheap! Keys to becoming a successful chicken rice seller. The number of chicken rice stalls are so many that you can get them just about anywhere. But looking for a good quality one is like looking for a righteous cop in M'sia traffic police department. Nonetheless, this dish is so 'Singaporean', that it has it's own intant pre-mixes that help us overseas peeps rmb how home tasted like.

As in name goes, chicken rice probably originated from Hainan. But apparently, Hainan chicken are served as a cold dish, topped with garlic with sesame oil, which is an appetiser. Whoever that whipped up today's Chicken Rice deserve a more deserving salute than our pres during NDP.

For one thing, i dislike breast. Breast meat. Its meat is stripped, tough and dry! Pales in comparison to drum or thigh meat. But my bro likes breast meat, on the basis of laziness and having no need of bones knocking against your teeth.

Chilli is a key determining factor. But non-chilli lover friends just spam black sauce till the rice looks like it changed its race to Indian. For me, plain is the way to go to acquire the most original taste :)

M'sia has an interesting variation of Chicken Rice. Along the roads of JB to Malacca, they sell chicken rice balls. The only difference is the rice is moulded in *not bite-sized* balls. It's fun eating them, but i will never forgive them for excluded the fragrance of Chicken Rice's Rice.

Rice balls you attempt to stuff into your mouth whole, but end up choking.

NomNom Adventure - GongGong

Name: Gong Gong
REAL NAME: Conch
Location: Basically, any seafood stall in Singapore

Looks cruel, but yummy!

Basically anything that moves, some crazy Chinese would throw it into the wok and whip out a dish. Most of the time, I'm faced with the visual barrier before i push myself to consuming these weird foods.

GongGong, or so we call it here in Sunny Singapore. Then there is also LaLa, ChuChu, and probably many more i don't know. A quick wiki of 'GongGong' brought up the description: A Chinese water god, or sea monster. How vastly differing entities that are existing in the water. No matter what, good or evil, toss them into the wok with some garlic and spring onions, and there you go!

This peculiar takes quite abit of skill to eat. They are served with toothpicks! With the expectation that u dig those little rascals out. But i prefer just using my hands and pulling them out. And for the taste... I say it's an acquired taste. Some people love it, but i will choose other shell-fishes.

P.S.: There are so many exotic/interesting dishes that i have eaten, snapped, and waiting to blog. But they are all bottle-necked by my present '1 NomNom Adv a day" policy.

Alt+156

I need to remember how to type £. Damn the US keyboard, can't configure the $ sign. Gotta start dividing the values by 2 back to SG$ in order to evaluate whether to item in question is worth it.

NomNom Adventure - Samy's Curry

Name: Deep Fried Pomfret + Sotong + Chicken + Mutton + Papadum aka. Appalam
Location: Samy's Curry, Dempsey Hill

Always having a tendency to over-order Indian food

Indian food, always so generous with their servings (not their price though). Topped with lovely spices, chilli and curry everywhere. Most often, my mouth would be searing hot during the meal. Having to constantly wash off the burn with Lime Juice. Spicy food is really the Singaporean's way to go.

A lovely meal with my parents and girlfriend. Though we regretted not ordering the Fish Head Curry, the variety of food was more than enough to satisfy our rumbling tummies. I'm not really a fan of chilli (still), but curry is different. It's like soup :D Just a little spicy. Love how you can spam the curry onto your rice, making it all mushy and porridge like.

The highlight is the cheapest of all the dishes ordered. Papadum (Tamil: Appalum), which is a deep fried cracker with a very strong taste of spices. Papadum tends to be served as an accompanying dish to curry, etc., sometimes as a snack or appetiser. But Singaporean's mouth knows no customs, if it taste good, it goes into any part of our meal/life. It's pretty hard to find this stuff here, but priced at 50cents for 3 pieces, i'm gonna miss this.

Night Cycling

Last night I had an awesome adventure with the AJChoir peeps. 40km of cycling in an urban Singapore is not the interesting part, but i love it when we get lost. iPhone fails with only 20% of battery left. Nonetheless, we survived, with aching butts and shoulders.


View Night Cycling Route - 4 Aug 11 in a larger map


It was funny how the pedestrian walk just suddenly cease, and ahead is just the grass patch and the entrance into the expressway. It 3am, the roads are QUITE empty. I had half the mind to just cycle on the highway, but that's against the law :(


And for my first time, i actually saw the Ba Po (transsexual) at Changi Village. KarMun and YouYing recommended us this 'hot' spot. Apparently, it an open carpark, with an interesting round-a-bout design. So the girl/guys/??? line up along the perimeter of the carpark, and wait for customers to pull-up in their cars. One of them was wearing only a red bra and skirt, talking over the phone with his/her manly voice. Interesting. Such a pity that they turn to this kind of business after being so confused about their gender.


Well. To my lovely girlfriend Hazel, Colin, YouYing and Karmun... It was a great ride!

NomNom Adventure - Century Egg Congee

Name: Century Egg Congee (皮蛋粥, Pi Dan Zhou)
Price: S$3
Location: Punggol Coffee Shop (which is found in Kovan -_-) Opens only in the night.

It is never completed without You Tiao (fried dough)

I love porridge. By that i do not mean any kind of rice thrown into water. Because fish porridge in Singapore usually turns out to be rice in fish soup. That i do not fancy.

Century Egg is a very odd dish. Firstly, it isn't even a 100 years old, it's just aged in chemistry. And if you ever looked at a whole 100yo Egg before, there seems to be a network of feather-like structures embedded in the whites. Doesn't matter, they just taste good. Though their taste is really unique, smells pleasantly bad and fermented.

My mom had a weird teaching about porridge. Every time i went to the hawker one of my choices would be Porridge. But she would tell me it's not filling for the stomach and it digest fast, hence cannot be considered as a proper meal for lunch or dinner. Den, i am pretty much never awake earlier enough for breakfast, or staring at the computer through the night and forgetting about supper to have much chance to eat it. I'm glad i realised that was a ridiculous school of thought.

Porridge makes me feel, uncle-ish. Older. Furthermore, i feel that it should be combined with a cup of hot Teh-O (Black Tea). I thought i could eat fast-food my whole life and never get sick of it, now when i look at MacDonalds, it just doesn't seem as appealing as before.

Gotta learn how to cook this. It's gonna be my staple food there. White plain porridge, den additional side dish from the local market. And what is popular in Aberdeen? Apparently their speciality is good fresh seafood (wild salmon and mussels) and beef.

This little worm loves launching itself into the air when a threat gets too close to it. Arcs its little skinny body, and like a mousetrap, the tension releases and next moment it's on your nose!

But this guy was more co-operative. Cute.

NomNom Adventure - Won Ton Mee

Name: Won Ton Mee (云吞面)
Bosty's Translation: Cloud Swallow Noodles / 1-Tonne Noodles
Price: S$2.50 / S$3.00
Location: Kovan Heartland Mall Hawker Centre

Black = Salty. Black = Good

I grew up eating Won Ton Mee (shall call it 1-T Mee for short). It was my favourite hawker food when i was young, and still in my all-time favs. If i ever ate 1-T Mee from a new stall, i would always ask for black sauce. Singaporeans probably use Chilli as a grading system (eg. Chicken Rice, Kway Chap), but i don't care. Personally, i'm not a fan of Chilli, but that's not the reason. When i was younger, my Dad knew i rather enjoy the meal than to torture my young tongue. Still have yet to develop a sense of masochism that i think all chilli/wasabi lovers have. So he always ordered them black-sauced.

It seems chinese food is very commonly associated with take-aways in the west. But take-away noodles, esp 1-T mee is disastrous. All the sauce get absorbed into the noodles, leaving a hard ball of string. No longer good for eating, but as a toy for the cats.

Stop playing with your food

 No 1-T Mee is ever completed without its Char Siew (Pork. Charred?), and of course Dumplings (Fried comes as a + point). Looks like this dish is something i will only have as memories when i'm in Aberdeen.

Konami CheatCode

Chanced upon an interesting articles. (only would impress gaming geeks)
Cracked.com - 6 Glitches that accidentally invented modern gaming

I love number one. The Konami Code (Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A *sometimes enter*). Apparently, there are quite a number of easter eggs around the internet. ESPN.com had its fun couple of years back. 
It's hidden everywhere. I'm gonna end up trying the Konami Code on every single website. http://lockfale.com/ (provided by cracked.com) resulted in a random dinosaur speeding across the screen! No idea how that is related to the website's sales of pick-locking tools (though it could come pretty handy for GTA-ing).

Just hope i dun get freaked out by silly scare screens. I hate them. Wish u could use that in life too.