*

2012-01-15T23:31:00.000-08:00

Had a tour around the Mission district today, which is the Spanish area. It's well known for graffiti all over the neighbourhood, but especially is Clarion alley.

Another landmark in the area is the Mission Dolores basilica, also the oldest building in the neighbourhood.

It's an adobe style building with clay walls and wooden rafters. The rafters here are painted with vegetable pigments and lashed with rawhide. This is the chapel part.

And this is the basilica part.

Really nice contrast of red stained glass and blue painted interiors.

The museum holds some religious relics and Native American items. One of the things I found interesting is the traditional version of dice, which is to throw a bunch of sticks decorated on one side or walnut shells on the ground and count the number of sticks/shells lying on their backs.
There is a small graveyard which holds some notable residents of the area from the Gold Rush period.
A small Native American hut for display in the graveyard. It has good insulation.

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Next, I went window shopping along Valencia Street, which turns out to have lots of interesting shops. So here's a list where you can see what they sell, from their website. Very tempted to take pictures of their shops, but they wouldn't appreciate that. I have some favourites from the hippie Haight-Ashbury stretch as well.

Lists of interesting shops around San Francisco:

Paxton Gate - horticulture, taxidermy and art. Exotic plants in glass balls, Taxidermy unicorns and flying monkeys. Mission district.

826 Valencia - pirate gear. Without a display window and almost without a name, quite easy to walk pass. But fun to shop in, with witty pirate ship rules framed up around the shop and selling things like pirate hooks, iron locks and pickled leeches for your every ailment. Apparently born from a writing workshop. Mission district.

Loved to Death - taxidermy and memento mori. Taxidermy mice playing cards, Victorian photographs, gilded bird skulls as necklaces. Haight-Ashbury.

Kidrobot- graphic tees and collectible toys. Cute shirts, figurines and pop culture miniatures sold in blind boxes. Haight-Ashbury.

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More new foods to try. I dunno what to make with them yet, but I'll find out. Fennel, chard, celery root and parsnips.

2012-01-14T21:16:00.000-08:00

Being in a foreign country, one of the things I like to do is try out new food, whether traditional food from other cultures or modern concoctions dreamt up by vegans. Here's some of the stuff I've come across.

Bagels- I know, jakunfied, but I have to try them at one point or another. Do they sell them in Malaysia? Anyways, they are bread which is first boiled and then baked.

Pumpernickel-a very dense type of bread, kind of looks like the bumpy non slip material used in childrens' playgrounds, but surprisingly still crumbly. It's baked at low temperatures for very long periods of time ( full 24 hours)

Rice cheese-there's a lot of vegan alternative food being sold here, but so far I haven't had any good experiences with vegan cheese. If it's supposed to be an alternative of something else, that's what it will ever be after all. But it's not as bad as one of the soy cheeses I tried before, which tastes kind of like your mouth after you throw up.

Japanese Plum flavoured pasta sauce- sounds very weird, but actually, if you've had Chinese plum sauce chicken, it's the same thing. So if you put in meat,and imagine your pasta is rice, it's pretty normal after all.

Teff- a very small grain, which you can eat like oats. It has a slightly nuttier flavour.

Bulgur wheat- used mostly in middle eastern cuisine, I suspect. Usually I use it to make tabula kisir with chopped vegetables and crazy amounts of herbs. You don't need to boil it, just pour in hot water and wait for it to expand.

Flat leaved Italan parsley- to go with the tabula kisir.

Fennel-that's the chopped up thing on the board. The feathery fronds are used as a herb and the bulb can be eaten as a salad and tastes weakly like licorice.

Hemp milk- I've tried almond and rice milks so far, so what is hemp milk? Sounds a little dodgy, I know. Google it and you might come up with some website selling marijuana growing kits or something. Nevertheless, it isn't drugs, so no worries. Tastes kind of like soy milk but with a stronger flavour, and supposedly it's very nutritious.

Endives- haven't started on those yet, so no comments so far. They shall be a salad in the future with some mozarella de buffala (water buffalo cheese) and rocket leaves.

Yerba mate- a South American tea like drink. Kind of hesitant at first, because...doesn't it look a little like tongkat ali? But from the can, it's benefit is in keeping you alert (caffein), so in the end I tried it. Didn't feel any physical or psychological change after that. It does taste like JustTea though, if you're wondering.

Gjetost- a Norwegian cheese, probably one of the most expensive cheeses I've tried so far. I remember it being mentioned in one of Roald Dahl's books from when I was little, and he was waxing lyrical about it, so I was very curious. It does taste a lot different from other cheese, kind of like condensed milk and caramel.

2012-01-08T22:49:00.000-08:00

This is probably the most amusing bottle I've ever drank out of. It's Ramune! It's a type of soda from Japan, and for once doesn't have an awkward name. (Calpis? Pocari Sweat? Geez...did you know that the only bodily fluid considered clean is tears?)

Googled image

Took awhile to figure out how the bottle opens, even with instructions, but I think that's part of the fun. It doesn't have a screw on cap like usual, but has a marble stopping the mouth, which then falls into the top half of the bottle which has indents so than depending on how you hold the bottle, you can control the flow of the soda. If you hold it completely upside down, the marble stops the soda from flowing.Talk about good product design. If I was a kid, I'd be trying to buy this all the time. I'd also probably hurt my hand a lot trying to get the marble out of the bottle to keep, but that's besides the point.

~~~~~~~

Next, let's talk about music. Some of you were once or currently are interested in old school pop music, but check out who's still around.

Those albums were released just last year.What?! But somehow it's comforting to see that at least some bands are long lived. You know how most pop music is, quick to rise to the top, quick to fall into obscurity. They may not be as well known as they were in the 80s or 90s, but I think they are still pretty good. Take That has a more updated visual style, but Roxette still maintains their throwback style, probably a niche for them.

Besides that, I really enjoy it when you've been listening to certain bands for quite awhile, and you are able to see their progress over the years; some become technically better, some develop a more mature style or experiment with other styles with a good outcome, some change from having just teenage angsty messages to having deeper meaning in their lyrics.

2012-01-05T20:19:00.000-08:00

Hello again, I've finally decided to update my blog. Looks like the chatbox to the side will not be in service for free anymore, so you'll have to leave your messages under each entry. Which is a bit of a relief actually, now I can save your comments here permanently and in their relevant entries, and also there's no more of the recent problem everyone's been having with spammed chatboxes.

So here's what I've been up to these recent weeks (months? oh no...I've been that lazy with updates?)

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Thanksgiving at Mandy's place. Much bigger party than I expected, people from 2 dorm units who then proceeded to each invite a few of their own friends, and everyone gathers to eat in the biggest room available.

Here's our spread; turkey, sausage rolls, broccoli (hahah...mine, see how much I care about people's health?), fruits, mac and cheese, pecan pie, red and green bean soups, tang yuen and punch. There was another pasta not in this picture which came later.
Tiny dorm kitchens oh how I don't miss you so.
And so the only way to be seated was on the floor, which I guess is the most comfortable way anyway.
We're playing Dixit. It's really fun and easy at the same time. Check it out.
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Also, I biked to Sausalito. Not many pics, but here are the few I have.

On the way to the bike rental place I came across the Occupy SF tent area. I don't pay much attention to the local politics, so I forgot that they would be at the Embarcadero.
One of the ice rinks put up for Christmas. This one is at Justin Herman plaza. The other one's in Union Square.
Biking across the Golden Gate Bridge. Apparently one way traffic is no longer in force for pedestrians, it's now one side for bikes and one side for walking. Lots of pro-looking bikers around Sausalito.
The Bay Model Center, with their huge model of SF. If I remember correctly, it was used to monitor tide levels, but was turned into a museum after computers were used instead.
So this is Sausalito, quiet upscale area. Kind of small though.

Look, a blimp!

~~~~~~~

My Christmas was a little low key this year. I had dinner at an Indonesian restaurant with Xiao Wen and Gi (they found 2 Malaysian restaurants, but said both weren't as Malaysian as the Indonesian restaurant)They served Ais Campur (Kacang) with chocolate sauce on it. Then I went to see the Nutcracker ballet on the 27th. I think it's a little bit of tradition to see the Nutcracker during Christmas, plus I want to experience going to each of the entertainment venues around here (as in Opera, Orchestra, etc)
The City Hall is just opposite, and is dressed up for Christmas! Luckily the place was packed with ballet goers, or I wouldn't dare to display my camera here, it's (unexpectedly) a little bit of a dodgy neighbourhood.
They were blowing soapy snowflakes over the entrance in the spirit of the season.
Here's the lobby. Quite a varied crowd, working class people, parents with small kids(which little girl wouldn't want to watch a ballet?), students, people in cocktail dresses and suits, people in jeans and t-shirts.
The concert hall. Surprisingly I didn't have to sneak this picture. (In comparison, at the Broadway theater, you are watched like a hawk and no photos are allowed at any time even before the curtain rises-I think just a little slack in allowing people to take pictures is actually better for publicity though)

That said, of course there's no photos of the actual show. How was it? OK I guess, I think I always have too high expectations of live performances. It's fun to see a different take on the ballet even if you've watched it being performed by other companies. But I hoped the scenery would have been more elaborate, maybe it's just me, but when I hear 'The Nutcracker' I always imagine some over the top Russian styled candy land background.

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And New Year too. Happy 2012 bytheway!

The Macy's Christmas tree was up, so here's a picture of it. I think this is the first year they are using a fake tree, so that it can be reused every year. There's the skating rink next to it and some buskers performing music, so the atmosphere was pretty nice.
The streets were very crowded, and getting more so by the hour (and lots of drunks too, of course, not being dangerous, but making enough of an ass of themselves anyway) but we found a relatively empty car park to watch the fireworks from. Only thing is that waiting for the fireworks to begin makes you want so much to sit on the car rooftops around you. Oh yeah, and that night public transport was free, and so was car towing services, probably in anticipation of drunk accidents. Good idea.
Fireworks!

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And of course we have to finish with food pictures. I tried making ice cream (with egg yolks, half and half, heavy cream, sugar and vanilla extract). Turned out better than expected.
And then I tried pouring melted chocolate on them too, which helped since I was too stingy on the sugar. They stuck to the plate though, so maybe putting them on oiled plastic wrap next time will be better. But in theory if you do it well, you can transport the ice cream without it melting all over the place.

2011-11-19T18:49:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to see Cirque du Soleil's Totem with the uni. The venue stated was ATnT park, which is a baseball stadium, but actually the circus top was at an empty site next to it, and much smaller than I expected, which is good, because then no matter where you are sitting, you have a good view of the performance.

I didn't take many pictures, and not good ones even then, so the ones here I got from online.

It was exciting since I've never even seen a circus performance before, and with Cirque du Soleil's reputation, I had pretty high expectations, but it definitely didn't disappoint.
Before the performance started, some of the performers came out to the audience and interacted with them. These 2 are my favourite; a guy with a glowing hat and a scientist with a frog hand puppet which eats the audiences' popcorn.
Since the audience were so near the performers, I kept wondering what would happen if one of them makes a mistake and comes crashing down towards the seats. That didn't happen, but still it makes you worry a bit. What if the performers get stage fright and mess up...
Besides the actual performances, it was also fun to see the set design, how they transformed the stage to fit each act. So it's not only technical skill, but also child-like fascination with unusual sights. And also as usual the costume design was really good.
This guy is juggling against a glass cone, so the balls make unpredictable arches.

2011-10-26T23:48:00.000-07:00

I got a new violin! Now I can practice quietly at home. It's a Cecilio electric violin, not the top company, but good enough for practicing. Apparently the original price was $500, but I got it online for $130 (it's new).

Comes with the case, rosin (a little higher quality than what came with my acoustic), headphones(kind of like the ones they have on airplanes, you're probably expected to buy your own) and a beginner's manual. As a side note, here in SF one good thing is that you can borrow music scores from the library, you know buying them yourself is bloodsuckingly expensive.

It's a lot quieter than an acoustic violin, but you can still hear it. I think it's ok so long as the door is closed. You probably won't hear it at all from outside. It is a little more zingy than an acoustic. If you use the headphones and turn the dial to the warmest tone, it sounds a little better, but for practicing I like to leave the headphones off so I can hear the worst of it and try to play better.
Here's how it looks like from behind. I was pretty pleased of myself for being able to assemble the bridge and tune the strings myself, since Yen did that for me the last time (when you buy a new violin, the bridge is collapsed to prevent anything breaking in transit).

2011-10-16T17:31:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, there was a sandcastle competition at Ocean Beach, which was for elementary school kids. So I thought of having a look, and going to the Sutro Bath ruins while I was there as well.

Each team was from a different school, with kids and some adults building. They had small scale plasticine or sketches of what they wanted to build by the side. And of course parents to stand by and supply food and drinks to the team.
It was interesting to see what props they had, buckets, shovels, spray bottles, etc. One team had a pump system going from the sea waterline to a pond they made next to their castle, no motorised pump, so a bicycle stood in.
Seal rocks, and the event going on in the foreground.
While they were completing their castles, I went over to the Sutro Bath ruins, which was right next door. It's a 1900's public bathhouse that has been left to decay.
Not much remains except the foundation, but it's nice to see something so strange and undeveloped in the city.

Back at the sandcastle site, and here are the finished works!

And this is how you take pictures of the castles if you don't have a big enough budget for a helicopter. I figure that there's a remote shutter release from the ground, a pretty expert kite flyer pulling the camera around, and a bound and gagged camera owner screaming for help somewhere.

Probably the recipe for a good sandcastle is to build bigger pieces with less detail, so it's clearer to see in the sand, at least my favourite pieces were like that.
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Fleet Week! I made the mistake of going on the last day of the aerial stunts, so I didn't get to see much (the main show was cancelled because of the fog, and the ships on show were too crowded to admit any more people), but here's the few pictures I got.
It was more crowded than I expected, so, next year, better start looking around on the first day, and early in the morning. Lesson learnt.
Blue Angels flying in formation.
This is one of the permanent ships at the Maritime Museum, but I think it's been dressed up for the occasion.

2011-10-03T20:08:00.000-07:00

Yosemite! Massive picture upload, but I still feel like I took too little photos and didn't see enough of the park.

So, I was there with the uni, altogether maybe 50 people in 2 buses. I almost missed the bus there because the train was as efficient as usual, but after a little running with 2 bags, all was well. One person really didn't turn up though, wonder what happened.

So, after a 5 hour drive, we reached Yosemite Bug Resort, where we'd be staying. It's a little outside the park, but you can already start to see the geography there. With no further plans for the day, most of us went exploring the short trails around the resort. Here's a little waterfall we found. The rocks in there were pretty mossy though, but plenty of small fishes. Only a tiny trickling creek runs from it, so you can imagine how claustrophobic it must have been for the fishes.

And our first taste of sort of dangerous narrow slippery wilderness trails.
Lots of squirrels too.
This is the sort tent cabin that we stayed in. I'm not sure if some of us got the wooden cabins or not. But I did overhear a woman asking one of the resort staff how in the world they managed to house "all of us kids" around the resort.
And the inside. No bathroom, there's a communal one.
Here's the cafe, really nice and cozy. They have a fireplace, boardgames, and one night they had a live band as well. The kitchen staff were a bit overwhelmed at having to feed so many hungry students at the same time though.

Skis and a small canoe sticking up in the rafters.
We had a bonfire each night, with the American tradition of making s'mores (marshmellow and chocolate melted in a sandwich of graham crackers) I'd guess the firewood came from around the compound. Surprisingly we didn't get very cold nights eventhough the weather forecast was something like as low as 7 degrees celcius.
And next morning, we are in Yosemite National Park at last! So much area to cover, so little time. Only a small part of the park has a shuttle bus going through it, so other than that I guess you'd have to bring camping gear for a very long trek, or bring your own car. We students stuck with the shuttle bus area; the Yosemite basics.
First destination, upper Yosemite waterfall. We were hiking for a good hour or so up slippery, steep, narrow tracks and thought we could reach the top, until someone we passed halfway told us we weren't even 1/4 way there, so we just stopped at the lookout point to take pictures and continue somewhere else so we could see more of the park throughout the day. This is a view of Half Dome (the rounded mountain peak in the middle) The picture can't do it justice, but from that height it's amazing to see how little everything looks on the ground. The trees look so orderly, like lego blocks.
Yes, dangling my feet off the edge of a cliff. OK, fine, there was a safety railing I was sitting behind. Apparently in winter, some of the trails are closed off because the snow makes the trails too slippery. It's pretty weird to think it could snow, considering the weather was so hot for us that day. Talking about slippery, one girl did sprain her ankle, and I fell once too, and that's when the trails are as dry as they could possibly be.
This one's much more accessible, the lower Yosemite falls.You can just walk a short distance to reach it, but I was trekking with 2 guys, so as I found out later, their relentless scampering up rocks(pass some warning signs too) paid off with awesome views
This time of the year, the water level is very low, since the ice has almost completely melted off the mountains. There should be a river here.
Yosemite is good for rock climbing as well. They provide lessons if you like, but I think these 2 are more experienced. I saw a group of people starting out on the smaller cliffs, some of them brought their little kids to climb as well. But of course they wore harnesses, so they were more or less pulled up and down the cliffs.
Some people even brought their dogs to the waterfalls, to climb up the rocks, no less. Of course, that is a sausage dog, and those are really big rocks, so half the time the owner was dragging the dog up by the neck.
Big cliffs, whoopie!
After quite a long climb up the waterfall, the crowd thinned out, so here's a tranquil pool at the top. I didn't dare to go right down to the water though.
And an awesome view, with the big crowd of tourists out of the picture. You could see the moon rising faintly behind the mountain too, but the picture I took wasn't very clear.
Waterfall! A very small fall at this time of the year.
A little easier climb down.
Awesome benches.
That's the toilet, but what a cosy rustic exterior of a toilet.
Walking along one of the rivers. The low water level makes for a beautiful scene, but I also saw a sign showing their record highest flood level, somewhere 6 feet off the ground.
Oops, a paparazzi shot. But what a nice colour for the river.

Clouds rolling over the mountains. Later on when we were already in the bus, we saw a pretty awesome sunset against the rock faces as well, so too bad a shaky bus doesn't make for good stable photos. Places like these really do make you appreciate how small you are.

Meadows. The boardwalk was built to keep visitors off the grass and let it grow properly.

A small church in the park.
At night, we had another bonfire, and this time some of the gang started to play with the burning sticks we used for roasting marshmellows, to write words with fire. And who happens to have a camera ready at hand? Me...
Next morning was the day we were going back to the city, so I woke up early to take some parting shots of the resort. More camps.
I've no idea what this is, but it looks cool.

Right at the top of the hill there is a carpark, which offers a good view of the surroundings. The past few nights a group of us went up in pitch darkness to look at stars as well. Because it's far away from the city, there is less light pollution, so we could see brighter stars. It was pretty awesome, I don't think I've seen them that clearly before. I tried to take some pictures, but it was far too dark for anything to show up on my camera. We ended up just lying down on the deserted carpark to look for shooting stars, which as it happens, is one every 5 minutes or so.
Sunrise on the mountain. Surrounding the resort, there are a few farms, some of them with donkeys, so I heard a few brays too. (as a side quiz, did you know that burrito means small donkey? cute, right)

The wooden huts look like this.
Schoolbuses. One of them broke down on the way back, so we were delayed an hour, but I guess it was a rough trip after all.
The firepit in the daytime.
This is supposed to be a cauldron for the fire, but I wouldn't recommend using it.
The cafe from the outside.
The resort has a spa too.
And yes, they do like their bugs. Not as buggy as Malaysia, but I guess they are a little hippie after all.

2011-09-19T23:15:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I saw this book in the uni library. Before this I've read Art Spiegelman's Maus comics, about his parents' experience during WW2 (apparently An American Tail had a copyright infringement issue with it)so I'd heard of this book too. And...I think it was really good. The story and the illustrations are simple, but it just makes you smile to flip through the book, trying to convince you that it's really a dog bewitched to become a book. The binding has some interactive elements like a fuzzy cover and a dog leash bookmark, so that's part of it's appeal.So...yes, if you see it in your bookshop, open it.

2011-09-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

I had something of a mooncake celebration over here with Mandy and Chad. I don't usually celebrate it even in Malaysia, just buy some mooncakes and eat, but I think it's a good opportunity to have a party anyway. They've started selling mooncakes in Chintown, but still quite expensive although I don't think they are as fancy as the ones in Malaysia. Even saw some durian paste mooncakes being sold. But 1 box of 4 being upwards of $25 (RM75), it's not really a student budget dessert.

So here's an excuse to try handmaking some myself. I prepared 2 fillings; red bean and lotus paste, to go with 3 pastries; snow skin (ping pei)which is a non bake type, the common pastry type, and a flaky pastry type (if I'm not mistaken, it's Teochew). No molds of course, so just use our hands and good luck.

The darker ones are the common skin mooncakes, the lighter ones are flaky pastry, a lot like quick puff pastry (should probably have brushed with egg, but I don't have a pastry brush). The filling and dough were all surprisingly crumbly, so it wasn't easy to form the shapes, but who cares as long as it was fun to make, right? The taste was alright, a lot lighter than those sold commercially, but I think that's because I felt too guilty to use the full portion of oil and sugar stated in the recipe(together those would have been more than 2/3 of the mooncake). It might be an improvement because it was much easier to eat.

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And also, I survived Monday classes! 8:30 am until 6:30pm in uni with a 4 hour lunch break in between. Not so bad since I spent my lunch looking at kids' books illustrations in the library and then going to the park to eat and lie down on the grass. Now is the perfect weather to do that.

2011-09-10T20:45:00.000-07:00

Over here in the US, they have an interesting grocery shopping alternative, called CSA (community supported agriculture). How it runs is that you pay the farmers first, and they use the advanced money to run their farm. In return, you get what they can harvest from the field, so it's not the same every week. Sometimes there is less and sometimes there is more. Usually the food is local, organic, only what is available in season, and the farms are small and personal.

It sounds kind of fun, if you're tired of iffy food production and not-exactly-honest production principles, this is the way you can actually see where it comes from, most farms have family days where you can visit the farm too. It's nice to see some families subscribe to CSAs to educate their kids about where their food comes from and help them grow up eating healthy whole foods too.

Some people think CSAs are just a hype that will go away, but I think at least it's a little resistance against the over-industrialisation of food production nowadays, if anything it can help show businesses and policy makers the changing wants of the public and that they are starting to become more educated about food safety, environmental issues, and about how food production subsidies streamed in the wrong direction ends up having you to pay up in other ways (healthcare and such).

Here are the websites of 2 of the more popular CSAs around San Francisco, if you want to have a look at how it's done: Terra Firma , Eatwell

2011-09-10T20:05:00.000-07:00

So in the end I got a new camera. After wasting 3 weeks, the camera shop found another broken component in my old camera and decided the spare part is too expensive and I might as well buy a new camera, so this is the one I got - a Panasonic DMC FH20. It got quite good reviews online, and I'm pretty impressed with the 8X zoom (all the better to spy people with :D Just joking. Not really.). It's a little heavier than the last one, but not too bad, I guess. Only too bad it didn't come with a cover. I'm using the old Nikon cover for it, which is a little too small, not sure if I should get a proper cover, or maybe a small bag that can serve the purpose, or if the tight fitting cover will do although it does make the camera look like someone who spent too long at a buffet.

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And then we are back to the customary food pictures. I know you miss them. A lot of fun experiments took place when I had no working camera, but here's what I made today.

Eggs benedict with homemade hollandaise sauce and English muffins. Freshly made bread still hot from the pan or oven is always nicer than store bought however new you are to bread making. The texture is nicer, and your own hard work makes everything taste nicer.

Sourdough bread with red sauce. Ok, fine, it's spaghetti sauce.

And one pic I took from my last camera, spring rolls.

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Uni's been on for 2 weeks now and I've only been to 1 class so far, because of Labour's Day and uni not being open yet the Monday before that, so I still feel like I'm in this isolated Summer holiday balloon. Even that 1 class I had was kind of laid back, it was an evening class, no one seemed to be talking to anyone they didn't already know, and the lecturer managed to sort of drug himself with his throat medicine (it made him sleepy)and there was no homework. So I'm wondering whether suddenly everything will become hectic next week?

I'm currently thinking of ideas for my final project, since I'm taking preproduction for it this term. I think I might have a comparatively unique idea, which is to model things that look more like traditional paintings than video-game-ish look, which I think the lecturers are considering as cliche. Not sure how well this idea will work, but I'm doing some research in advance anyway.

2011-08-28T20:04:00.000-07:00

I've been trying a lot of new recipes lately, and one of them was how to make sourdough bread, which involves growing wild yeast.What's that? It's yeast that you catch from the air and grow in a mixture of flour and water over a week. So, a little more like a science experiment than a cooking one. Pretty fun right?

My camera is still being repaired, so photos from Google.

Apparently the wild yeast in San Francisco is special either because of the vineyards nearby or the fog. One of the specialties here served along the Fisherman's Wharf is a sourdough loaf that is hollowed out to make a bowl and filled with clam chowder.

It's a pretty simple process which I got from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's River Cottage Everyday, but summerised, all you have to do is mix flour and warm water to a thick paint consistency, wait for it to bubble and then each day for a week, discard half the mix and add in more flour and water to maintain it's consistency. And you have yourself a 'starter', which you use more or less like commercial yeast.

I was pretty pleased since it came out tasting like it should, although I made the dough a little too watery, so it made a flat loaf. Out of curiousity, I tasted the starter directly, and it was sour enough to actually sting a bit, but it was ok after adding all the rest of the flour to make the bread. It feels kind of like when you are in primary school and you grow green beans in soggy cotton, part of the fun is watching to see what happens, but also this time you get something useful for the thrifty student's cooking arsenal. Which reminds me, maybe I should try growing some herbs at home, since they'll be fresher and cheaper in the long run, especially good for those recipes that required a tiny teaspoon of herbs and you end up buying a monster sized bunch, use a little and watch the rest wilt.

2011-08-09T10:12:00.000-07:00

Grocery shopping for recipes you don't usually try; like from other cultures can be pretty fun. It's like a treasure hunt looking for weird creatures in the jungles of various markets. I like trying new things, so it's rewarding to start picking off unknown things from shelves and trying them at home anytime I've gone too long eating "stew-of-whatever-was-stuck-to-the-bottom-of -the-fridge".

I particularly like stalking around the aisles of supermarkets that are a bit more geared towards gourmet/ organic food, because that's where the more exotic items can be found, like grains produced on small scale, or artisan bread and cheese. Even if I don't buy anything, it's fun to read the labels. It's also a little game if you have problems finding items because they are called different things in different parts of the world. My recent ingredient list was taken mostly from BBC Good Food, so there were some UK/US English problems. Here's what I found out:

Rocket: Arugula
Double cream: Not available in US, but similar to heavy (whipping) cream
Single cream:Similar to Half and half in the US (since when did dairy products become so mathematical?)

Pine nut: Pignolias

photos culled from Google

2011-08-06T10:54:00.001-07:00

I found this series while channel surfing recently, but now I've grown onto it. Through the Wormhole is a documentary series focusing on theoretical physics and questions about existance(think: string theory, multiverse theory, is there a God?, where did time come from?). Each episode presents one question and features several scientists with strange ideas that they are trying to prove. It feels kind of like theology for atheists. Although some of the ideas are difficult to understand, and some don't really make sense, it's still interesting to listen to the many possibilities of what the universe really is, not just what we can perceive with out 5 senses. And, yes, some ideas do make sense in a very roundabout way, so that's when things start to seem strange and a bit scary.

2011-08-05T20:52:00.000-07:00

You've maybe seen these things on my Facebook, but I'll post it here anyway. I've been doing some modeling as my self-imposed holiday homework. It's strange that I'm supposed to be a 3D modeler but don't have many models, so that has to change. I'm aiming to make as many Maya models as possible, and let one of the lecturers check them when uni starts, only after

that will I go on to finishing off with ZBrush/textures/fur/rendering/rigging if I'm lucky. I have a few categories in mind:

Disney style: Goofy

Cartoon characters, from 2d or 3d designs. Useful to practise translating different art styles into models.

Amphibian: Poison dart frog

Animals from various families. Useful for thinking up plans to solving limb variations. Also I think it's more practical to focus on animal or creature modeling for a portfolio since there are more occasions to model those rather than human characters when it comes to movies. You can always use live footage or 3d scans for humans, but animals might not be cooperative, and creatures just don't exist.

Fish: Veiltail goldfish

Bird: Sparrow

Mammal: Grey wolf

Invertebrate: Rhinoceros beetle

One more category I want to do is other people's art pieces; from painting, or art dolls, etc.

2011-08-05T20:02:00.000-07:00

photo culled from Google

The other day, I went for another free day, this time to the Exploratorium, which is an interactive science museum at the Palace of the Fine Arts. Standing in line, I wasn't very sure that it would be the right kind of museum for me since every adult in line had at least a few kids in tow. The museum seems to be aiming for a younger age group audience.(although they do have adult nights where drinks are served to the visitors as well)

It's a little different from the average science museum, because they don't just have exhibits by themselves, most of the displays are more like simple experiments or games that you can try yourself. Probably more fun to go with friends though(or as the website recommends, go with a date), because some exhibits require more than 1 person to make it work, and also if you read the description and don't really understand how it works, it's more fun to figure it out as a group than just by yourself, when there's probably a few people watching you to see how it works, and you look a little stupid when you don't succeed.

The museum's layout is like a warehouse with sections divided into your senses; sight, hearing, etc, so you have a lot of curiosities to play with, like trying to make different coloured light, making things show up in thermal cameras, and playing with substances of strange consistencies, or steam, or water. There are also some demos, like dissections of flowers or cow eyes (probably a little slow for adults since they are explaining to kids, but still interesting)

~~~~~~~

lousy handphone quality picture taken before the performance

Besides that, I went to Stern Grove's concert again, this time it was the SF ballet performing. Since it was an outdoor performance, there was no elaborate stage backdrop. Half the show was more of a modern version of ballet, which suited the venue better, I think. My favourite piece was one with quite a minimalist costume (just leotards) with modern instrumental music and more unconventional choreography. I found it better than the 2nd half of the show done with seasoned professionals to classical music and white tutus (the first half was performed by apprentices). Perfect day for a picnic, except that I had no company, so the sad part was watching people around me, whole families with kids, groups of friends or couples having fun and sharing food, with me as the odd one out. I did get to do a lot of sketches of people posing candidly though, which is better than models since they are naturally relaxed, but then again they keep moving every 5 seconds, so ended up with lots of extremely rough lines, sometimes overlaping a few poses when someone I was watching moved about.

~~~~~~~

Photos taken by me will be on hold for awhile, my camera gave up on me. It's from that time I went to the beach and sand got in. Apparently that broke a few gears in the focussing mechanism (what? and the beach sand in SF is so fine!)so I have to get that fixed for some disproportionately high price. So be warned. Cameras + sand =not good. I totally forgot about that the last time, I've never had this problem before.

2011-07-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I went to the Academy of Science museum in the Golden Gate Park. It was a 3rd Wednesday of the month, so it was free day. I arrived there 1 hour before opening time, but there was already quite a long line, I guess that those who arrived later might not have been able to enter at all, since there's a limit to how many people they allow into the museum at one time.So you can guess how popular it was, probably because usual admission fee is quite expensive, and also since it's holiday season, so lots of school groups, summer camp groups, and families with children.

I didn't take any photos, so here are some I found online.

Apparently the museum has just been renovated, and incorporates a lot of green building solutions, like the rooftop garden here, that insulates the building and collects rain water. They also have solar panels, glass windows to maximise natural lighting, and wall insulation made out of recycled jeans.

The planetarium was something I haven't seen before. It's sort of a 3D theater, but instead of glasses, the ceiling is a screen that is a 180 degree dome, so you feel like you are enveloped in the movie.

The entire lower floor of the museum was the aquarium. The saltwater for the aquariums is pumped from the sea (which isn't far away) and filtered before being used, so it was pretty clean. I quite like looking at water dwelling things; jellyfish, tropical fishes and other unusual things, so I spent quite a long time in this section. They also had a small tidepool section where you can touch some of the animals (supervised by staff, of course)
I didn't get to see all of the sections of the museum, partly because I walked around pretty slowly, but also because of the crowd, I couldn't get into the rainforest section. I'll probably go back next month, and check out some of the other sights in the park.

2011-07-12T15:39:00.000-07:00

More video tutorial stuff. This one is from Digital Tutor's interior rendering tutorial.Global illumination(for the day scene), final gathering and mental ray shaders.

2011-07-08T22:29:00.000-07:00

Fresh from the oven. A headset modeled while I was watching Digital Tutor's product visualisation lesson. Took 1 hour 5 mins to render this one frame, because of the high quality settings to get rid of pixelisation, and because those small holes are all modeled in, so pretty heavy poly count.

2011-07-07T18:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the first Wednesday of the week, so I went to the SF zoo, which has free entry for SF residents on that day. It was kind of impromptu, I just found out about it the night before when I was sleepily surfing for cheap or free stuff to do around the bay area. Just have to bring anything with your address on it, like a bill, and a photo ID to confirm your name is right. I managed to walk there, since it's not that far from where I live. 1 hour's walk, which I counted as a replacement for my jog around the lake, with the cool weather and listening to my iPod, it wasn't that bad.

Early in the morning, some animals still asleep.
One of my favourite parts of the zoo was the petting zoo/small farm which had some more uncommon breeds of domestic animals, which you can go up to and touch, or buy some food to feed them.
Since it was free day, there were many school groups at the zoo too, so lots and lots of children running around and making lots of noise. Luckily since they are shorter, you can kind of wade through the crowd. But I felt sorry for the animals, at one point, a group of kids decided to start screaming in unison. Some enclosures had signs saying to be quiet, but most kids and even the adults are too excited to notice.
The goats' eyes were kind of weird, their pupils are like rectangles, not circles.
The zoo also has a volunteer program where kids can become members and help to showcase animals to the visitors, like sitting in the open with some (domestic) animals and letting the visitors touch the animals, and tell them some info.
An alpaca with a uber-posh hairstyle.

Some of the bigger enclosures.

They had a part of the zoo with sick and injured animals adopted by the zoo. This one has only 1 wing after being involved in a car accident.

Usually I wouldn't visit a zoo if it involved spending any money there. I'm still not sure if I'm for or against zoos, I guess it depends on which zoo it is. Some of them do have breeding programs for endangered animals, but then again how they got some of the animals in the first place is kind of dodgy, and might be causing the animal populations to become endangered in the first place. I was also wondering how the zoo(and many other tourist attractions) can manage to financially have free days. Seeing the crowd, the shops and cafes in the zoo were making very good business, for one, as well as things like sales of food for the petting zoo, rides on the kiddy train,etc. And the high taxes in SF as well, which is why residents have so many free and discounted benefits.

2011-07-05T12:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was 4th July, Independance day, so I thought I'd go out to enjoy the atmosphere. The original plan was to go to Fisherman's wharf to see the fireworks with Mandy, but she fell ill, apparently the upstairs people at her dorm were creating a lot of noise the night before and kept her from sleeping.

Oh,well, no problem, this calls for impromptu change of plan. I went a bit earlier to check out the Musee Mechanique at Pier 45. I've heard a lot of good reviews about it in the papers and online. It's a free entry 'museum' that houses antique and retro coin operated Victorian parlour toys and arcade games, which are still in working order. Somehow I managed to walk by it several times when I was at the wharf (it was nestled behind a row of very packed seafood restaurants that I avoid walking thru because of the crowd)

Stealing a look when someone else put in a quarter.
Monkeys that play music.
A zoetrope, old school animation.The drum rotates and the mirror in the middle reflects the cards stuck to the side, so it creates kind of a screen where you can watch the animation.Laughing Sal, the most famous machine in the museum, that laughs and moves when you put a quarter in. It's even more scary because it's life sized. Funny what people in the old days would laugh at. I guess those were the days before It and Chucky were in the cinemas.
There are a few types of machines there; fortune telling machines, dancing dolls, music machines, skills (like arm wrestling or shooting) games, machines that mould coins into souvenirs, what the butler saw (boxes which you have to peep through to see photos or early technology short films), besides more recent machines- arcade games like Pacman or Street Fighter. That reminds me of my childhood when there was an arcade room at the club.Am I getting old? No wait...I think there's still Street Fighter in arcades nowadays right?
My favourites were the doll type machines, some of which tell fortunes; they move about and blink and the fortune falls out the slot at the bottom of the machine, and some that dance, or laugh, or play music. Mostly I like them because they are so creepy and quaint, kind of like old world technology, some of them are really well made and nice to look at by themselves too.
This one is a huge scenery which you can walk around and see the characters in it move. There were 2 of these kind of machines, one was a fun fair, the other a farm scene. One thing good is that the museum was so crowded, so if you are feeling stingy, you can just keep walking around and you'll be able to see some machines in action when other people put in money.
My favourite. The doll inside was really well made.
One of the music machines. Kind of like an antique jukebox, but the fun part is looking at the parts moving inside.
A mechanical horse, which apparently is supposed to mimic how a real horse runs.
This was the farm scenery I was talking about. The quaint thing about it was that there was a family of black farm hands at one corner of the scene, which I think, if it was made today, would be politically incorrect.
More moving dolls.

The museum is housed in what looks like a warehouse, probably a little more crowded than usual because of the celebrations going on.
I have no idea what this does, but it looks good anyway.
Outright freakishness; skeletons playing musical instruments. I guess this is what the Victorians call memento mori. Or maybe more related to the Spanish tradition of celebrating death.
Most of the dolls move by mechanisms controling each limb, like old school robots, but some of them are marionettes.
And some of the machines are just beautifully made.

Some 'what the butler saw' machines (I forgot what they are really called) They either had photos or (old technology) videos of the San Francisco earthquake, or old school porn(nothing much, this is Victorian after all, probably just women dancing in their underwear). Old technology as in the machine lights up and flips photos quickly to produce the illusion of movement. One of them even had 3D !
A bit of an odd one out, but there was an antique steampunky bike in there as well.

~~~~~~~
Back out in the open air, the sun is setting, making for good lighting for photos. Here's the stretch of seafood restaurants. The bay area is well known for sourdough bread with clam chowder, and dungeness crabs.
The streets were packed with people. There were many street closures and traffic jams, so #1: don't drive here. #2: public transport is a little iffy as well, I had to walk a few blocks away from the festivals area to be able to catch the bus back (it was probably 10 or 11 something, luckily it was safe because of the crowd, and similarly lost passangers looking for bus routes that are running, so just follow the crowd towards the general direction you are headed to.#3: use the toilet before coming here. There were extra outdoor toilets put up, but even then the line was so long, it's probably faster to actually wait until you go home and use the toilet.
Ahh, the liberating feeling of walking right down the middle of a usually busy road right in front of traffic police.
Decided to try something from Coldstone, since I've heard about it from other people. This one is their no fair funnel cake, I also haven't tried funnel cakes before, so the experience was worth the price, to my cheapskated mind. In the US whenever there's a fun fair or street celebration, there must be funnel cakes. Actually at the end, I was a little bloated, it's a little too big a serving for a dessert, but besides that...guess what? It tastes like yau char quai. I'm not kidding. It's a nest of yau char quai with ice cream, whipped cream, strawberries, syrup and icing sugar on it.
One of 2 stages set up for free open air concerts. Lots of people turned up to picnic. San Franciscans really know how to enjoy their celebrations. Some people even brought tents to the grassed area in front of the stage. And they wear the weirdest things imaginable in the spirit of the celebration; funny light up hats, flag shirts, flags meant for car windshields stuck to their sunglasses (I'm not kidding, I passed by a woman wearing that and overheard her saying that someone thought she was a freak) as well as the more normal red/white/blue dress code.
Lots of boat rides too, probably bringing passengers out for dinner on the ocean and a good view of the fireworks later on.
The shops were doing very good business too, looking at the line outside some cafes, I wonder why people even bother. This pic I just took because of the lighting.
Lori's Diner, the one with the vintage American interior.
Ghirardelli square, looking especially romantic. There are a few classy restaurants and shops open for business.
The cable car turnaround spot.
And more cosy lighting pictures of the wharf.

And then fireworks! I didn't take pictures because of the long exposure time making everything blurry, this pic is from the video I took.
And this pic will represent all the other fireworks on show. It was very good, especially with the crowd providing the oohs and ahhs and cheers, and impromptu anthem singing. Just that tripodless pictures won't do justice.
And so on the way home, I took some pictures of the City Hall building as well. I was a little concerned because going back I had to pass by the edge of Tenderloin, but at least there were a lot of people outside as well, so it wasn't so dangerous. It's true what they say, you can smell the unwashed people and drugs in the street.

~~~~~~~

And an epilogue: My guide to dressing for the occasion. So you want to dress the part for the celebration, but you worry that flags made into t-shirts will make you look fat (among other things) or that utter flamboyancy might get you killed by haters or the fashion police. So here's my guide to subtle (cheapo) dressing for the occassion, a.k.a. I bought a pack of colourful hair bands and found a new way to wear them.

It's good if you, like me, brought few and basic clothes for your studies and want to dress up a little by wearing lots of shit on your wrist. But otherwise you could use your chosen colours in their original purpose to tie your hair up. Incidentally, the 4th July combination can be used for many other countries as well (red and blue are used in many flags, right-they are the 2 most aggressive colours) France, Italy, Russia, Australia, etc.

2011-06-28T23:48:00.000-07:00

Went to see Billy Elliot yesterday. I was a bit paranoid about arriving late, since waiting for the Muni can take quite awhile (I guess especially on Sundays when you can expect to be standing around for half an hour or so. Lesson learnt and reinforced several times >_<), but I arrived safe and sound anyway.

What struck me was how many children there seemed to be in the audience. I assume it's because the cast for Billy Elliot has a lot of kids, so that would draw the kids in, although the show is not exactly aimed at kids, the plot about the miner's strike might be a bit too difficult to understand (I did hear a kid sitting behind me asking his mom what happened a few times) not to mention the liberal dusting of obscenities throughout the show, which is intended to be funny, but I'd understand a parent being queasy about their kid watching.Then again, it might still be a good opportunity to introduce kids to broadway. The other reason to explain the amount of kid audience is just a guess, but I suspect some of them might know the performers, since a lot of parents seem to know each other (or just being very talkative before the show?)

So how was the show? It was ok. Didn't quite hit the target, but that's probably just me having too high expectations. The thing is, I listen to the cds from the show, and I form some mental image of the show being perfect. But when you think about it, the cd would most likely sound better than a live performance since they can record a few times and edit it to perfection. And putting up Billy Elliot has a few technical dilemmas to overcome too, like the issue of the cast having to put on a northern British accent (when it's easy to spot a fake accent, and then it gets a little distracting)and also the accent is so thick, you could miss a few lines. Also, if you were expecting to see top notch dancing, you have to remember that most of the dancers in the script are supposed to be bad at dancing, except for the title character.

But there were several hits too. The choreography was interesting to watch; my favourite was Grandma's song (incidentally, my least favourite track on the cd). The humour felt a bit forced, but the touching scenes were pretty spot on (I suspect the kid sitting next to me started crying at one point, and there was an outburst of parents hugging their kids during the intermission)

2011-06-26T23:30:00.000-07:00

Today was SF Pride Parade day, so for sure I went for it. You can't be in SF and not go for the Pride parade.It's the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transsexual celebration here, and although there are a few smaller ones around the world, I think this one is probably the main one.

I knew it was going to be crowded, but even getting on the train to go to the parade area was an adventure by itself, haven't seen the train so crowded before. And you could tell that everyone was going to the celebration, not least because of the rainbow flags and skimpy clothing some of the commuters had on(one guy had on a fishnet top, hot pants and high heel shoes).And also because of the infectious happy united atmosphere starting in the train even before we are at our destination.And lots and lots of gay couples, of course.

Got to Market Street (parade area) just in time to see the first congregation pass by. Luckily I got to stand up on wall leading to the subway(illegally, but then everyone was doing the same thing), so I could get a good view despite the crowd.I'd imagine all the other streets in the city must be completely deserted, except for some sad employees that have to stay in the department stores and places and quietly wait for the customers to come back into the shops.
It was a pretty long parade, slightly under 3 hours, with everything from motorbikes, cars, politicians, pole dancers, naked people, flamboyantly dressed people, companies, kids, senior citizens, pro-gay straight people, religious groups, schools, bands, to cheerleaders, and everything inbetween.
This guy has such an aura of Oscar Wilde/Aubrey Beardsley and the gang of gay art noveau artists of that time, which is totally cool with me.
Gay police officers. They've got the crowd charmed, you can tell by the loud cheering.
Quite a lot of companies had floats.
The spectators were pretty wild too, lots of naked or at least semi naked people walking around.I'm guessing lots of them are not LGB or T, but just trying to get attention though, especially the women.

Well Fargo in all it's gay splendour.
I guess some of the parade participants are still in Carnaval mood.
Men in dresses. Awesome.

The dude on the car was so totally enjoying himself. But then again if I were gay I'd be enjoying the day to it's fullest too,before having to go back to everyday life.

The bondage crew. There's another bondage celebration called the Folsom Street Festival, which I missed. Sounds a little dodgy though, but interesting. The bondage flag is that blue striped thing with the heart.

Straight people for gay rights. Btw, in some other congregations, it was funny to see some gay couples holding hands, and then next to them would be a straight couple, you could almost hear the guy saying to his wife: quick, hold my hand so I don't look gay.
Beach Blanket Babylon. It's one of the theater shows here.
Yes, male pole dancers, now you're talking.
Please fuck safely. Have a nice day.
Out of the closet is a clothes store, but I'm not sure what they do besides. LGBT support of some sort probably.
Whole Foods, one of the organic supermarket chains here. Honestly when I saw the cupcake out of the corner of my eye I thought it was something else unflattering(you can guess what it is), but now it looks kind of cute.
Facebook's congregation. Very loud cheers here too.
PETA with some horny suggestions. SPCA went along the same lines too.
My uni's LGBT club was in there too :D
Rocky Horror Picture Show, another one of the theater shows.

And what's a Pride parade without some cowboys? Ow!
It was pretty nice to see lots of religious groups, schools and family groups parading as well. Actually I was expecting some homophobic attacks sometime, but there were none, and there was generally a very supportive atmosphere instead.

A crowd favourite, for sure.
This is just some random mural that I passed by, but since it's at the edge of the dangerous Tenderloin area, now's a good time to take a picture, when it's safe and crowded.
One of the oddly dressed attendees. Too bad I don't have any pictures of the naked women with painted nipples, or the guys in leather bondage, or neon underwear. Or guys frenching each other :D
Didn't hang around much after the parade ended, it was way too crowded to look around the stalls. My direction was only decided by the way the crowd was jostling me. Just had a general feel of what was going on; street fare food, life concerts, gay porn for sale, car companies trying to promote their latest model, then edge my way out and try not to get trampled on the way.

2011-06-23T23:02:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.Now I want to wax lyrical about it.

If you've watched Food Inc., this book is pretty much about the same topic, but explaines more in detail.Basically the author tracks down the origins of four meals from 3 categories; fast food, organic and hunted/gathered.

It was a very interesting read, because it really does link up much about the evolution of produce (corn, cows), the farming policy in the US and the obesity epidemic among other things. If you were reeling in horror about the industry's dirty secrets when you watched Food Inc., things get worse in this book. Hopefully the food industry is not as bad in smaller countries like Malaysia, but when money is the aim at the end of it all, so much can get way out of hand.

The author also talks about the absence of a strong food culture in the US, being a mostly immigrant country, and how that makes the population confused about their relation to food, on one end consuming fast food and other pseudo-food, on the other going crazy for the next great diet scheme and food supplements. (compared to countries with strong food cultures, viewing it as eating for pleasure:slow food, and as a social activity. The French seem to eat without care, wine, cheese, pastry, but still are generally healthier than Americans).

In the last part of the book, the author prepares a meal exclusively out of ingredients he has hunted/gathered/planted by himself, which is the most natural and ethical form of obtaining a meal. It was particularly uplifting reading this part, even after the gloom of reading about industrial food production in the earlier 2 parts (even organic food is not as organic as you would be led to believe)More than being just about food, it was more about being human and full awareness of your part in nature as a consumer of food compared to being a cog in the industrial scheme of things, not knowing how food is produced, or even what it is.

I really enjoyed reading it. It was chock-full of information, but was still a light read and not preachy, with some humour thrown in. It was objectively written, not siding with the mega-companies, and not siding with the animal-rights activists, but more towards the way things should be in nature and striking the balance of symbiosis between eater and eaten, between plant, animal and human.

Bytheway, if you haven't watched Food Inc., where have you been, man? Here's a trailer:

2011-06-23T22:19:00.000-07:00

Recently I've been meeting up with the Malaysian kakis over here quite a lot, I think in part because it was just before the start of the Summer term, so it's like squeezing as much fun in as possible before getting back to work. Here are some pictures (very few in my camera, I just realised)

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Bonfire organised by one of the uni's dorms. I don't stay in the dorm anymore, but I got invited by a friend who does. We started at 1pm, which is very early considering sunset is now at 9pm. (It used to be at 4pm in Winter, what a difference,right?) Much more fun then I expected. I thought everyone would be keeping to themselves since nobody knew each other (just moved in for the new term), but turns out they brought kites and frisbees and were sharing among each other. The bonfire was more of a campfire, and we started it before sundown, but we had a good time toasting hotdogs and marshmallows anyway. Not many pictures since my camera got jammed with sand halfway. Luckily it's back to normal now, I thought I would have to cough out some money to get it fixed. This is what happens when you get overexcited at the beach. My last camera got broken after I dropped it getting sort of chased/intimidated by macaques in Sarawak.

~~~~~~~

And then there was Gi's birthday. Our gang went for karaoke before dinner. I was a bit uncertain since I've never been karaoke-ing before that, but I guess it wasn't bad at all, eventhough the others were mostly Chinese-song types. They kept putting in some English oldies that they know so I wouldn't feel left out, which was pretty nice of them. Now I have another thing on my list to do when I get back to Malaysia; enjoy cheaper karaoke. (Enjoy cheaper everything)

After that we had a buffet Korean grill for dinner. Gi ate for free since it was his birthday. And I swear that buffet paid back for all my months so far of eating vegetarian.
The next day our gang met up again for dinner at my place, and after all the meat, and especially after all the oil and fat of the day before, we tried putting together a detoxifying dinner (ahem...not really) of vegetable pie, scones, parfait and tea.
~~~~~~~

Also went for one of the free museum days at the Golden Gate park. There are several museums in there, but the one I went to was the Conservatory of Flowers. It's housed in a pretty little antique greenhouse.

Predictable angle, I know, but now you know how the whole conservatory building looks like.
Walked a little around the Haight-Ashbury district just outside the park after that, but didn't manage to finish it, I'll have to go back some other time. It's the hippy district, so a lot of weird shops to look at.

~~~~~~~

And with a big oven like this,it's time to try some baking experiments.

What is supposed to become cream puffs. Tasted ok, except that they were stuck to the tray. And being puffs, they were totally empty inside and got squished when I tried to pull them off the tray. So here is a nice presentable picture of them before destruction.
Also, cherries seem to be in season, so I made a cherry pie. Not bad, I think. It uses tapioca pearls to thicken the juice into a jam-like consistency.

2011-06-09T00:26:00.001-07:00

Some thoughts about home furnishing.

A feature light. It can be a huge lamp taking a corner of the room, and can be a pendant or standing light.

Lights along a wall. Built either into the ceiling or into the wall, but provides a long strip of ambient light.
Alternatively, place a row of small lamps along a wall.
Or dangle lights in a row from the ceiling. These also work well clustered together in the middle of the room.
Lights can also provide a nice pattern.
Look at how stores/restaurants/hotels light their spaces. Notice the rows of round lamps on the left.
Wallpaper. I like flowery Victorian stuff, you can tell, right?

If it's for a feature wall, dare to make it bold in colour or texture.
These are the same wallpaper and the same wooden panel, but in different colours. Above is more like a classy bar (possibly velvet wallpaper, padded wall), and below more like a beachside chalet.
And a note about colour. Plain backdrop, with sparing pops of colour work well. One large bright coloured object can be complimented with several small items of the same colour or small patterns of the same colour in the wallpaper.

2011-06-08T23:42:00.000-07:00

Some of my favourite pictures from my research folder.

Disclaimer: All this stuff came from online. Not mine.

Lighthouses and the awesome power of nature.

I can imagine a lighthouse in the middle of a desert.
Traditional ovens.

Pot belly oven. Such a cute thing.
I like the curved walls and the white Mediterranean colour scheme.

Stairs. The next one reminds me of cake with icing and lace doilies.

Antique bicycle.
Vespa. The suave Italian icon.
Antique maps.

Antique scuba gear.
Animal armour and antique weapons.

Hungarian helmet.
I like items that are unusually made of wood.
Cute retro fridge.
The lights in lighthouses.
Water pump. That would make an awesome(but tiring) tap faucet.

Grandfather clocks. Some of them have really pretty and well crafted faces.

Something for the kids' room.

Antique sewing machines.

Stuffed toys.

2011-06-08T22:37:00.000-07:00

Here are some home furnishing ideas I got from my folder of research pictures that I made for my college final project. I had a really good time looking for the pics, I think I'd really furnish my home like some of these pictures next time. The theme was antique, with a bit of country/nautical/ feminine/rustic touches.

Bed hangings.
Sexy and ruffled look, but still balances up with the neat railing. Rustic colour scheme and natural materials, but with a modern accent with the pendant lamp.

Tropical and breezy with slated wooden blinds and natural materials in browns against no-fuss white.Plants add a good contrast, with the leaves being the only cool colour in the furnishings.
A sweet wallpaper, with the pink theme sparingly echoed in the lamp.
My favourite, French country kitchens.Wooden beams with produce hung out to dry, stained wood, patchy walls, copper/cast iron pots and pans. Muted green complimenting the cheerful yellow colour scheme. Old world charm. Grandma's kitchen. Smells like warm soup and freshly baked cookies. Notice the bird cages which are used only to add interest, and the black cast iron pot holder hanging above the kitchen island.
A pleasingly cluttered kitchen.

Old world looks can be achieved with the absence of any synthetic material. No plastic or imitation stone. Even the clock is wooden. There is however an abundance of wood, glass, metal and ceramic, even in the kitchen utensils.
When wood is painted, it is only painted white, so it still looks natural. Notice the white roses in the bucket on the stools, and the skinny cast iron chandelier.
OK, maybe there's no need for a fireplace in Malaysia, but the idea of a feature wall is useful for a TV set instead. A narrow strip of highly textured, boldly coloured material to contrast with a plainer wall.

Nowadays there are a lot of Chinese 'antique' furniture being sold. Having 1 feature antique item can make a nice contrast without making the whole house look either frumpy or eerie.
Or go for something different. How about a writing bureau used as a side table or computer desk?
Nostalgic and sweet,antiques with signs or wear are gaining popularity. (Either restored antiques or new items with simulated wear marks). It somehow still looks clean and in working order because of it's whitewashed appearance.
A modern take on a chandelier, which would be at home in a classy bar or jazz club.
Feature items to add interest to the home. A large free standing dressing mirror.
A gramophone. I'm pretty sure there are some that look like gramophones on the outside but play cds. These things are so pretty...
If you are a fan of fruits, using said fruits as a centrepiece on the dining table is a good idea too.
Some key holders which I think are pretty cool. This one is magnetic.
This one holds keys by a slot.
Ideas for plants. Not many people put plants in the house in Malaysia, but I think as long as you don't put floating plants inside the house, it's ok(Or change the water now and then...you know...mosquitos...).I like this wine barrel look.
Or an old-school pail. Why do we even use those ugly plastic ones nowadays?
This is more of an 'outdoor party' thing, but I think it looks charming. Tea candles hanging from trees. This is before they invented fairy lights.
Flower vases. Not very practical to upkeep, but here are some pretty vases I found online.This one reminds me of perfume bottles.

2011-05-30T21:58:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd post some pictures of nice headphones I found on the web. Don't have to resort to boring black headphones anymore nowadays.

Urban Ears headphones, which come in minimalist solid colours.
Wooden headphones from The Perfect Unison, designed by Dutch artist Parra.
Habitat Rasta headphones from Skullcandy.

2011-05-30T20:40:00.000-07:00

Massive photo upload.

So yesterday was the Carnaval Parade in the Mission area. There was the procession, stalls selling food and crafts, companies promoting their products, performances, and a huge crowd.

One of the cars from a car hobbyist group.
Not only Latino styles were on parade, but also this one, plus some african groups as well.
Male eye candy. Not enough. Mostly women would be the ones dressed skimpily and dancing, while the guys would be the ones playing music or wearing the monster costumes.
One of my favourite floats.
One of the nice things about the SF Carnaval, even if it's not as grand as the one in Brazil, is that people of all body types come out to flaunt, even the elder and overweight people.

There were quite a lot of stilt walkers. I wonder what would happen if one of them fell.
I like this group because of the sheer size of their group and the way they colour coordinated their team. The next few blue, green, purple and red ones are from this group.

Surprisingly not as many feathery costumes as you would expect. Still quite a lot though.
Check out the guy in the bug costume.

One of the more interesting floats.

~~~~~~~

The day before that, I went to the Treasure Island Flea Market. Treasure Island is a man-made island that used to serve as a naval base during WW2.
View of the Bay Bridge from the Avenue of the Palms.
A sculpture near the market. You can see the CW channel crew in front of it. They usually air a humiliating short dance sequence with someone holding the CW sign as an advertisement for their channel, and that's just what they were filming that day in the market.
Some geese that just turned up on the island.

I didn't take any pictures of the stalls, since I don't think the owners would be happy, but there were a lot of stalls selling vintage items (furniture,brass kitchenware), handmade items(dolls, clothes), food, plants and other unique things. There was an entry fee to the stalls area, but it was worth it just to look around and get some inspiration.
I did however, buy 2 vintage belt buckles, which I used to make covers for a pair of second hand headphones that I now own. Not sure if I'm entirely happy with it though. But at least it looks unique, and much less like something a computer geek would use.

~~~~~~~

And I finally got down to unpacking my stuff today. This is how the room looked before, very bare and clean.

And after. Ok...due to the size of the room, it still looks slightly bare (but that doesn't mean that I want to accumulate any more luggage)
I used that white piece of board as my notice board, since I don't dare to stick anything on the walls. Even masking tape nearly peeled some paint off my dorm room wall.
I got some freebies when the guy before this moved out (actually a lot of freebies). The brown table is going to one of his friends later on, but I have the rack, which I only discovered today has a fold out table that was hidden under the bed.The fold out table also helps to hide my little mountain of clay and a mess of wires. There were also a few extra shelves that I added under the heavier shelves just in case one of them breaks. So I might not even have to buy a table. I guess it's big enough for computer work, and any other project that requires more space can be done on the huge bare floor or at the kitchen table. The cd player, chair, lights, glass table and a bunch of blankets and comforters were also left behind.
Here's what the view out my window looks like. Quiet neighbourhood with wide roads.

~~~~~~~
There was also a lot of food left behind. Including this; natto. It's fermented beans (which become slimy) eaten with soy sauce and mustard. The fist time I tried this was during the student exchange trip to Japan 5 years ago. That time, I more or less gagged, smiled politely, and later discreetly threw it away in the dustbin. This time, I managed to finish the packet, but it's still not something I would buy by myself.
And a new food picture! Linguine with lemon-basil vinaigrette and walnuts. It is a very simple dish that only sounds classy. Sure, walnuts and olive oil are a little more expensive by weight than the usual tomatoes and onions, but you use very little of it, and the dish is almost an empty dish. I've also been eating a lot of zaru soba recently. All the empty dishes, with fruits afterwards. I'm probably just too lazy to cook, want something comforting and fast to prepare.

2011-05-25T22:16:00.000-07:00

After so many months of walking pass it, I finally went into the SF public library's main building at the Civic Centre, yesterday. Also because I won't be back in uni until August, so I need another source of reading material. But man...the library is so much better than the ones in Malaysia. Membership is free, so I got a card (eventhough I'm foreign, it's still free. I guess that's where all those high taxes go). You get to borrow 50 items for 3 weeks, and it's renewable once.And low penalties for overdue items. Kids don't have to pay fines either. And one of the best things is that it's not only books you can borrow, but music and movie cds, magazines, comics and sheet music too.They also have sections for foreign languages; Chinese, Russian, Japanese, etc (I think that selection changes according to location, like more Chinese material in Chinatown). The main building is the largest with 6 floors, but there are many smaller ones in the various neighbourhoods as well, plus the mobile library. Ah...that greedy little feeling of too many options to choose from feels so good. Too many venues to check out, and too many stuff to borrow.Their collection is pretty good too, quite up to date, has lots of popular titles, and books with interesting blurbs. Only thing to complain about is the toilets, which for some strange reason has awkwardly low doors and isn't very clean, which makes you feel like you're in China.

And today I visited the branch nearest where I stay because the renovation going on in the house was way too noisy. It's small, but well stocked. Just a glance around and I found many titles I'd been looking for. Also, it's recently been renovated, just reopened 2 weeks ago, so it's really nice and clean and comfortable.

And look what I got while grocery shopping. A dollar coin. I was a bit suspicious whether or not it was real, since I've never seen it before. I checked online, and apparently it is, although it's a bit rarer. Probably the same thing as a RM2 note in Malaysia.

2011-05-23T00:08:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd make an entry about the various tourism related modes of transports around SF. There's plenty of weird vehicles around the city, with so many tourists and SF's nutty personality.

Mr Toad's tours. I don't see them much, but I really like those vintage cars.
Segway. Looks fun to use, although I have no idea how it works. Does it balance by itself or is there a mechanism to help?
Ride the Ducks, which is supposed to be an amphibious vehicle. I've never seen it in the water before though. Frankly I think it's really loud and annoying.
Go Car. It's a tiny 2 seater car with a GPS controlled tour, so you can drive anywhere you like, but like your GPS map, it will tell you the directions to tourism destinations and some background info about the places.
Double decker bus. So 5 minutes ago.
Cable cars. So last century.
Or you could rent a bike, which is pretty popular here. Probably better for traveling long distances outside the city.

There are other not so flashy modes of transport of course. Trains and busses (BART and MUNI, which are very efficient and stop practically every few blocks), taxi ( a little expensive), Caltrain (slightly longer distance train going from SF to Gilroy), or you could rent a car too.

2011-05-22T23:22:00.000-07:00

I survived my shifting ordeal! My arms hate me and never want to talk to me again, but besides that, I'm still in 1 piece! Feels good thinking I won't have to be shifting every term from now onwards. It's shocking how stuff piles up, I just came here with 3 bags, and now I have a little mountain. Mostly traditional sculpting stuff and my spices collection though, but it reinforces my will not to collect bulky stuff. Took a taxi, plus 2 more rides on the train to get everything here, but I think I was lucky not to miss any timelines. ( like missing my check out appointment, which might cost someone $25, or trying to collect my stuff from uni when the building has closed). Things are a little messy in the new place because of the renovation going on, and because there are currently 5 people staying in a place that usually has only 2 (housemate's visiting relatives) but it's manageable. I'm back in Ingleside, by the way. It's the same house as I was in Winter.

Apparently there's some wood rot in the wall which causes leaking, so it's being replaced. Haven't yet experienced cold drafts of outside air, or noisy repair work, and I hope I won't have to experience it later either.
Trying to adjust my menu by eating stuff that doesn't require refrigeration. I can think of rice and noodles, which are dry and can be cooked just before eating. And fruits. The fridge is a little too full with 5 people sharing now. This was today's dinner.An orange, an apple, an avocado, cherries and walnuts. Not bad at all, I think. Cherries seem to be in season now, it's being sold everywhere, so I bought some. I don't think I've ever eaten cherries besides those horrible gaudy maraschino ones. It's sad, I know.

~~~~~~~

And here are some pics of this term's completed projects.

Ecorche. I had to lug this fella back on the train because it was marked at 1pm and I had to move out at 2.30pm, so I shifted my other stuff by taxi first and took this back separately. It's 1/2 human size, btw. And heavy. Yes. And my coat now needs washing more than ever because some plastilina rubbed off onto my coat while I carried it back. It was fun to make though, and very helpful to make you remember the muscle system. I know the legs are too thin...I was wondering about that...
Organic modeling. First time using zBrush! It wasn't as difficult to get used to as I thought, although I haven't yet explored many functions yet. I hope my lecturer was pleasantly surprised to see my model posed and textured.
Advanced texturing and lighting. I somehow like it more when the boy was bald. I liked his shiny little pate.Lets see...we learned a lot of new software and plug-ins, but only as an introduction. I'll list them just for satisfaction.

- subsurface scattering (skin shader)

- shave and a haircut (plug-in for the hair)

- Renderman (for rendering the hair only)

- Mudbox (for seamless texturing of round monsters)

- Nuke (compositing)

- UV Layout (it's for unwraping UVs semi-automatically, although that was done for us-not very well, I had to redo some UVs for a better workflow. What?!)

2011-05-18T01:10:00.000-07:00

I've been listening to lots of soundtracks from animations recently. Does make you feel a bit nostalgic. Here are a few from youtube to share:

Can you imagine trying to present this scene in storyboard form(as in acting it out to the production team)? It's like a total workout by the time you're done, it's so hyper.

I should watch the Jungle Book again. Somehow it seems a little left out, I almost forgot it was by Disney.

And I just listened to this for the first time recently, Mulan orchestral suite. It's so epic for an animation, I can imagine it being used for a live action movie too. I wonder when they used the music...for the credit roll?

2011-05-07T17:53:00.000-07:00

2 more weeks of uni to go. Can't wait for the holidays, actually. I'd like a little more variety in my daily routine. Having said that, there hasn't been very much to blog about, but here are some pics of experiments in the kitchen.

Tortilla with refried beans, salsa, rice and avocado. Avocado actually goes really well in this kind of combination.

Muffin with icing, sans muffin shape because I don't have muffin moulds, so I just used a baking pan and cut them into squares. Tastes good if you ignore what went into the icing. I need a renewed dedication to exercise over the holidays.
I find that I eat too much when I don't get out of the apartment, probably because boredom makes your tongue itchy (must be some form of cabin fever). See...that's why it's a win-win situation if I get out for a walk. Exercise and it keeps me out of the kitchen.

~~~~~~~

Recently, I've been finding some really good books in the uni's library. Currently, I'm reading Midnight's Children. So far, I think it's really interesting, funny and serious at the same time, and it has a unique writing style, with a lot of digression and metaphors, but everything links up in the end.

I also got to read the Golden Compass. Too bad the library doesn't have the other 2 books in the series though, because I think I'm a little hooked on it. Actually, I don't remember the story from the movie, although it was good, look wise. But it's true, you'd really want your own daemon after you've read the book. It was surprisingly scary for a children's book though, there were parts with gory details, and some psychologically disturbing parts. (spoiler alert)There was a part about a small boy who got his daemon separated from him and how he was hugging a piece of dried fish instead of his daemon, which kind of felt like an ironic black humour thing, but makes you feel sick at the same time.(spoiler over) I heard that the Abhorson trilogy is even worse though. Maybe I should try reading some of Garth Nix's books sometimes, they seem very popular.

But I noticed that most kids stories will have these 2 things: animals, and parent-child issues. There are other things which are pretty standard, like school life, friendship, puppy love, etc too, which are often present but not always. It's true then, that good stories always have some way in which the reader can relate themselves to the story, so kids' stories will always have themes about what any child would encounter in real life.

So...animals. Popular with children, I think it's because animals are like friends, but less judgmental. Also, it helps if they are cute and furry. They could be pets like in the Harry Potter series, unfortunate experiments like in George's Marvelous Medicine, the main characters themselves, like in Wind in the Willows, or imaginary creatures, like any story with unicorns or dragons (although they might be just extensions of ponies and lizards). It could also have something to do with fun in creating collections. It might be just me, but when I was a kid especially (even now) I liked to collect things in categories. There's something fun about visualising the chickens in George's Marvelous Medicine, some with long necks, some with long legs, some big, some small. Or the owlery at Hogwarts, with different breeds of owls with different personalities.

And then there are the parent-child issues. Regular conflict, step parents, dead parents, surrogate parents. I remember one lecturer commenting about Coraline, that the use of the 'other mother', and cruel stepmothers in other children's stories, is supposed to mirror bad experiences of children with their own parents, and how stepmothers are used so that kids can maintain a good image of their parents and separate the bad experiences as coming from a whole different person. Coming back to the main story, let's say the Harry Potter series, has quite a lot of parental issues going on. The dead parents (his real parents), the step parents (the Dursleys), the surrogate parents (the Weasleys),the ideal father (Dumbledore), the godfather (Sirius), the father that could have been (Snape), and what could have happened instead (the Longbottoms)

2011-04-17T18:45:00.000-07:00

I was looking at the album artwork in my iTunes, and I kind of like Gidon Kremer's album artworks.They are mostly very understated but beautiful, like his music. I think for someone so talented, he keeps a low profile. Here are 2 of my favourites:

Silencio, which is a collection of minimalist music with his Kremerata Baltica orchestra. I get goosebumps when I see this picture. Especially if you've heard one of the tracks on the CD; Arvo Part's Tabula Rasa-Ludus (Blank slate-Game)
Hommage a Piazolla, which has music composed by Astor Piazolla (tango). Kremer's music has a lot of improvisations, but they work very well.

2011-04-17T00:47:00.000-07:00

I got my Ripstik! These past few days I've been bringing it down to the basement to learn how to ride it, where the floor is smooth and flat, there are few people, and plenty of walls to cling on to. I've been making good progress, I think, but I need more before I bring it out onto the streets. It feels quite reassuringly solid, probably a bit heavier than a skateboard(it's 4 kgs, but there are lighter versions for those who like to do tricks), but I bet it's a lot more fun too. The way it's ridden makes it more similar to a snowboard than a skateboard, as in swerving the board sideways with your hips instead of pushing forwards with your legs. I also found out that it can be a good form of exercise for legs and hips. I hope I can get good enough at it to ride around Ingleside or the wharf over the Summer holidays, that would be awesome, with the scenery.

It was pretty ironic though, that when I was asking around for opinions whether I should get this, that friends my age thought it would be too dangerous, but my parents thought it was a good idea. I think it's a good idea too, if you don't try it, you'll never know whether or not you can do it, and I'd like to say that I did some caster boarding, before I get too old to be impulsive enough to try this sort of stuff.

2011-04-13T01:32:00.000-07:00

Food pictures.

Sushi. I filled it with Japanese style fried eggs (which are sweet) and cheese. I don't have a sushi rolling mat (I have one in Malaysia which I never used before DX) so instead I used a piece of cloth, my hands and willpower. Which resulted in unevenly packed sushi, of course. Didn't bother cutting them up since the wrapping was a little loose, and the seaweed was a bit soggy and tough, since I left them in an open plastic bag for a long time. But it makes good comfort food, especially when it's about time to go grocery shopping.
Tofu-green bean-miso loaf, and my failed senbei (it was super tough, I suppose you should deep fry them after all). Incidentally, I found out what those mysterious balls in my mushroom soup came from, it was coagulated corn starch. I found out because I diluted corn starch in water to make the glaze for the loaf, and it produced that waxy looking lumpy paste. Tastes ok though, now I know what it is.

~~~~~~~

These past few days, I've been always wanting to eat some kind of Oriental style simple noodles, so I made up this strategy to come up with a noodle soup, which is fast to prepare, so I don't have to make it in advance and end up eating cold food because I'm too lazy to heat it up. Plus it is healthy, since you can do without oil, and put in very little salt and sugar and it still tastes good. Usually the more ingredients you put in, the better it tastes. And it's fully customizable to whatever ingredients you have at hand or what you like eating, so it's good for cleaning out the fridge when you have all those odds and ends from other recipes. I kind of made it up as a fusion between jong gol/ kimchi noodles/zaru soba. What you need is:

-the salty component: soy sauce/dashi/ stock

-the sweet component: sugar/mirin

-the spicy component: chili powder/ chili oil/ sliced chili

-vegetables: anything green will do, I prefer Chinese cabbage

-protein: meat/tofu/eggs/mushrooms (which although is not exactly what you'd consider a protein, still tastes meaty)

-noodles: any oriental type will do, but I prefer soba

-water

-additionally, I add in rice wine, and sometimes toppings like green onions, bonito flakes, or sesame seeds. And serve it with tea! All that hot soup makes you feel comfortable after coming home tired on a cold day

~~~~~~~

Here are some pictures of uni works in progress. I don't have any finished projects at this point, since for all subjects, we only have 1 project that we work on for the whole term.

Ecorche. It's building a half muscle-half skeleton model out of plasticine. We'll be starting on the muscles tomorrow, I think. The class is 6 hours long( X 15 weeks), and the lecturer demonstrates step by step how to sculpt this thing. It's like the frog man we made in TOA(in what...3 classes X 3 hours and no homework?), but this is the steroids version of that class. Every tiny bump on the bone is explained, the placement, what is the function, etc...
Organic modeling. Not much new technical things to learn, but the lecturer does give a lot of helpful anatomical tips on making good and correct looking models. Still have to bring this into Z Brush. We can choose what we want to model, mine is a copy of Richard Macdonald's Midnight (portrait sculpture of French mime artist Marcel Marceau)
Advanced texturing and lighting. The models and animation are provided. Still have to add in hair for the little boy and textures for those round monsters. In the animation, the little boy is in an abandoned house and tries to feed a Snickers bar to those monsters (I textured them as MnMs) which start fighting over the bar. Don't feed chocolate bars to chocolates, bad hyperactive things happen.

2011-04-09T01:42:00.000-07:00

This looks even more fun! It's a Ripstik caster board, which only has 2 wheels and moves by you rocking your feet in opposite directions, so you don't have to push off the ground. From reviews online, most people say they like it a lot(and the users range from little kids to working adults), except that the wheels wear out very fast. It looks difficult to learn how to use it though, but most people say they can pick it up reasonably fast. Plus it looks cool :D. It's more expensive than a Soleskate though, and seems to be more for riding for fun than for commuting.

Oh yeah, FYI, the Soleskate is $26 and the Ripstik is $50 if you buy it online, much cheaper than if you buy it on site.

2011-04-07T23:12:00.000-07:00

Currently wondering if I should buy some sort of non-motorised transport item since I don't have any form of transport around SF except my feet and public transport. I was thinking somewhere along the lines of bike/ scooter/skateboard. But then again, SF is pretty hilly, so it might be tiring to go uphill and dangerous to go downhill. Did some research, and found out that a bike would cost around (meaning the cheapest) $150, and the rest, $50. What do you think? It'll be good for those medium distance places which take a long time to reach even if it's not tiring.

And I came across this thing, which is a soleskate by Razor. It looks kind of fun and I like that it's so small (17"). One of my concerns is bringing the mode of transport around when I'm not riding it. I'd like if it was light and I can put it in my bag.

2011-04-07T16:14:00.000-07:00

What is with this recent spate of movies based on fairy tales? The Red Riding Hood thing going on this year, and the Snow White thing that will be happening next year.

Red Riding Hood. It looks visually nice, but it's so Twilight that I'm not surprised most people don't want to see it.

Hoodwinked 2, which I only know about from a poster I saw around the city, but I think it's only limited release. Looks a bit amateur though, with Shrek type lame jokes.

And next year will be Snow White's turn. I hope both movies will do better, especially Tarsem's Snow White (with Relativity Media). Looking at his record though, I'm guessing Tarsem's will be visually superb with a kind of just-alright storyline.

2011-04-01T19:25:00.000-07:00

Done with the patina for my sculptures, I think. Here's how they look like now.

Heavy cream patina. Actually I skimmed the milk fat off one of my soups and used it to gloss this sculpture. Awesome,right? Surprisingly, it really does make it waterproof ( I got the idea from a book, not made up myself). Hopefully the colour will stay this dark and shiny and not dry off. The mounting wasn't really successful, I was supposed to use epoxy putty to glue it down, but that only made the bottom lift off the board even more, so in desperation, I used all-purpose glue. I have a feeling someone will overestimate the bond strength, tilt the entire thing, and the sculpture will slide off the board and onto the floor...

I think the base came out nice though. Cut and beveled it myself. I like the 3 tones of brown thing going on (wood base/clay base/feet).

Gold acrylic patina. It's semi transparent, so it's kind of a reddish-gold colour, but I think it looks good that way. Usually when people mention patina, it's the green rusted colour, which you can also achieve from a chemical reaction of 2 kinds of paints, or more commonly, you can fake different kinds of metal or stone using many layers of acrylic or powdered pigments in floor wax. But I think the fake metal/stone thing looks really gimmicky, I want something more natural and wabi-sabi.

~~~~~~~

Food picture time. Lots of soups (and recently too much fat and sugar)
What is supposed to be cream of broccoli, if it was blended. So let's just call it broccoli potage. Bytheway, I found out that boiling is the worse way of cooking broccoli if you want to maintain it's nutritional value, although it's probably the most common way people cook it.
Fruktsoppa, or Swedish fruit soup. Followed the amount of sugar mentioned in the recipe this time, and guess what...too sweet. But just add water, and it tastes good again.
Garlic soup. It sounded nice, since I'm a fan of garlic (1 whole bulb for 2 servings) but then it has less than 5 ingredients, so it's kind of bland. Even the texture is monotonous.
Vichysoisse, a leek potage with milk in it (milk fat patina came from here). It tasted a bit too fatty, or maybe it's a psychological thing, after I read the nutrition facts on the box of heavy whipping cream that I used. *why am I complaining about all my cooking...*
Dorayaki. I made some triangular just because it's easier to fry and then cut it up. The filling I used was chunky red bean paste, not the creamy one you usually have from stalls, but it tastes just as good. I was wondering why the pastry part tasted familiar. My guess is that it's the same pastry that is used for apam balik, just substitute red beans with peanuts and corn! I should test this theory sometime.

~~~~~~~
And here's another picture of the Palace of Fine Arts that didn't get transfered from my camera the last time.

~~~~~~~

I think my sleeping pattern is coming back to normal again. Last few weeks, I've only been able to sleep sometime between 3:30 and 4:30am, the bar opposite also did not help. But now it's getting to be more like 1:30am. I could actually feel my IQ dropping a bit and my complexion getting even worse. Let's see if I can make myself sleep even earlier.

2011-03-30T00:54:00.000-07:00

My cousin was over in SF for work last week, so on Saturday I brought him around for a trip around the city. I didn't take many pictures, since I've been to those places before, but here are some pictures of the Palace of Fine Arts, which I think I haven't posted before.

It's basically a dome and a lake, although it does have a science museum within it. I don't think my pictures served it justice, it's much prettier in real life.
And here's a picture of my dinner, because I was so amazed by the serving size XD. This was at Lori's Diner, which had really cute interior design, incorporating a lot of retro American memorabilia like jukeboxes and retro arcade games.

~~~~~~~

And since it's high time for me to patina and mount my sculptures, here's some photos of them after they came back from the kilns. I took pictures just in case I mess up the patina. I transported the bust by putting it in my luggage bag, lined with scrunched up plastic bags. Happens that it just fits. I was a bit surprised at the bright colour(it started out looking like chocolate), but it grows on you after awhile. The director of the school of sculpture, who helped me fire it, mentioned that it was a nice clay to fire.

And I'm also thinking of using an accidentally decapitated bust from last term as a base to make a new sculpture. Here he is, giving me the evil eye for even thinking that I should re-sculpt him over.
And here he is again, after some clay surgery. Still a work in progress, but I changed the proportions a lot and removed a lot of jowl for a younger character. No reference for this one, just going to have fun.
~~~~~~~

More food pics. This one is a black bean burger with rice buns. It turned out pretty good, actually, although I prefer eating it with only 1 bun instead of 2 (up and down) since they are much denser compared to bread. I just noticed that black beans turn an iridescent purple if you soak them overnight, quite fascinating to look at.
Candied red beans.
Ginataan. Actually it's a hybrid with bubur cha cha, because I don't know the difference between them. Ginataan is probably the Filipino version of the same thing. Used vanilla essence instead of pandan leaves.
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In other news, I've more or less finalised my lodgings for the end of this semester onwards. I'll be staying in Ingleside, the same house that I stayed in during winter, since the guy I subrented from is moving out at the right time. The rent is going to be slightly higher than expected, but as a bonus, it's furnished, which I didn't expect. I'm happy with that, since I don't want to waste money buying a bed, and then have to think what to do with it when I shift out. On the downside, it's 45 minutes from uni by train, slightly uphill(tiring to walk up), and laundry there is slightly more expensive. On the upside, it's got fantastic scenery, TV, newspaper, big kitchen and room, and more earthquake and tsunami proof compared to another place that I was considering.

You can tell I'm slightly paranoid when earthquake/tsunami proof or not comes in to play. The other place I considered was Park Merced, only 2 km away from the Winter house, but that's 2km nearer to the shoreline and downhill, and also on the 9th floor of a 50 year old apartment.

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Also, I need a new handphone. My current one's battery is going crazy. Sometimes it insists that it's fully charged, only to run out of power in the middle of my next conversation. I tried looking for a replacement battery online, but couldn't find one, I think it's too outdated. I think I've figured out the system of buying handphones in the US (it's together with your phone plan) so now I just have to decide how basic a phone I want to get. Now my plan only covers talk (no texting or web, cos I'm too stingy, plus I don't use my handphone much. You'd pity my social life if you saw my call logs) so the phone I get will probably also only have talking and texting functions. And alarm clock, I guess. Seriously, phones like that get marketed as senior-citizen-phones. It has big buttons for easy dialing! I'm not kidding.

2011-03-24T22:07:00.000-07:00

More food experiment pictures. You probably notice an Asian food theme going on here. I think it's because once I buy ingredients for one recipe, I have leftovers that I can use for another recipe, so it advances along that line. Then I think, oh, I just need 1 extra ingredient for this recipe, and that's how I accumulate spices in my cabinet.

Another batch of kimchi. This time, it's radish on the left, and napa(chinese) cabbage on the right.I think that the resulting juice could be a little more concentrated though, not sure how to do that...maybe squeeze the vegetables dry before marinading. Also, I became a little more elaborate and replaced sugar with a mixture of fruits, although I think just sugar turned out better and less watery. The last batch I made, I used what I think is pak choy (looks like an elongated version though), it was a very small batch, and I used all of it to make:

Kimchi noodles. Pretty simple, if you already have the kimchi. Just add noodles, lettuce, mushrooms, tofu , garlic and sesame seeds. The kimchi already has flavour enough, so you don't have to worry about the stock or adding salt. I tasted this at a food court here before, and surprisingly, it tastes a bit like a mild laksa, sour and spicy.

I also tried making Japanese curry (the thicker, sweeter and less spicy version of Indian curry). Turned out spicier than the stuff you can get ready packaged, but I think it's the brand of curry powder that I used, I even skipped using red pepper powder and used less black pepper, and it's still too hot. But other than that, it has that nice filling thick curry texture, although I could have mixed it a little more evenly.

2011-03-23T13:49:00.000-07:00

Lol...someone had to do this: The Turnip Prize

It's a parody of the Turner Prize, but instead of pretending that the winning art pieces are fabulous, the aim of the competition is to find the artwork that is the worst piece of shit. The prize is a turnip nailed to a piece of wood. The winner can keep the withered turnip but must nail a new turnip on for next year's winner. Something to entertain yourself with if you are feeling apathic towards the world of fine art.

2011-03-21T23:42:00.000-07:00

OMG...what is this???

In-vitro meat

I'd never thought about it that way, but I guess it's possible to grow meat for consumption if it's already being done for surgery, right? Apparently PETA wants to award the first company that makes lab-grown meat available for public consumption. Just needs a crazy enough investor with iron confidence to take the risk, and maybe a little more research to make it a more efficiently produced product.

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Recently, I've been linking around Wikipedia looking for food inspiration, and I found out something about beans: some kinds of raw edible beans(kidney beans, for example) contain toxins, so they must be cooked thoroughly before consumption, by boiling for at least 10 minutes. I think most people would do this anyway to get the beans soft enough, but apparently using a slow cooker may not bring the beans up to a high enough temperature, and instead make the toxins more powerful. Soaking overnight and pouring away the water, or fermenting, also help to remove the toxins.

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And here's an interesting history nugget about soup:

The word restaurant (meaning "[something] restoring") was first used in France in the 16th century, to describe a highly concentrated, inexpensive soup, sold by street vendors, that was advertised as an antidote to physical exhaustion. In 1765, a Parisian entrepreneur opened a shop specializing in such soups. This prompted the use of the modern word restaurant to describe the shops.

Kind of makes you feel like having some soup yourself...

2011-03-21T00:57:00.000-07:00

Food picture update. Haven't done this in awhile. Got my inspiration to cook again. Got all the recipes from here

Mixed grain rice served with iri dofu, pickled ginger and long beans. Need to remind myself not to buy anything ginger again...but the pickled ginger looked appetizing. The iri dofu was quite fragrant, because of the sesame seed oil and green onions, and apparently is a good substitute for scrambled eggs (it's actually firm tofu). It looks, feels and tastes like egg.
Daifuku. It's the same as mochi, except it's not in soup. I think I made the dough too wet, because the texture was weird, not elastic enough.I'm not sure why the outside cracked, maybe it's because of the corn starch dusting and refrigerating it overnight that drew out the moisture. And also I should learn to be more generous with sugar, if I'm making sweets. I think it's become a habit to try to use as little salt and sugar as possible, and make up by using more herbs or more ingredients. Got some success with the red bean filling as compared to the last time I made mochi though. This time, I boiled the beans longer and mashed them through a sieve, so the texture was creamier. I reused the skin to make red bean soup. I think it'll taste better with sago and pandan leaves.
Zaru soba. It's cold noodles served with just a dipping sauce and garnish. It's oddly comforting food. I like it best with seaweed, because the taste is milder, but I also had green onions, radish, 7 spices powder (nanami togarashi) and toasted sesame seeds as garnish. At the side, you can see my yet-again failed attempt at salad, this time with a miso dressing. How hard could it be, right? But I didn't enjoy the taste and smell of raw vegetables, I washed it and reused the vegetables in fried rice. Not to mention I used too much mustard in the dressing. I also bought a bottle of kimchi, to go with these more empty dishes. When I first tried kimchi, I didn't really like it because it was sour and really spicy, but I think I'm growing to like it. Plus, it's supposed to be good for you, like yogurt is.
Rice balls. This time, I put pickled plum in them, then sprinkled furikake on them and wrapped up with seaweed. Next, I want to try grilling them and sprinkling with toasted sesame seeds. It's kind of an empty dish as well, since the main star is the rice, and not the filling, so my salad and kimchi make guest appearances as well.Btw...I I received my animal anatomy book! You can see it slightly in the background.

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Currently making a small batch of kimchi myself. It's pretty easy to make, here's a recipe. I substituted a lot of ingredients though, since I'm not too sure if I'll succeed, I haven't tried pickling anything before, I hope I don't make myself sick. But if I think it's got potential, but needs to taste more authentic, I'll go and buy the proper ingredients. I got a little crazy and started making the kimchi at midnight yesterday, then fell asleep and woke up realizing I left the salted vegetables at room temperature more than 2 times longer than I should. Also, not sure if there's a strict rule about how full you should fill the container, one source says fill it without leaving any air pocket, another said don't fill it to the top, since the kimchi will expand as it ferments. It was pretty fun opening the bottle that I bought, since it spewed open and the vegetables literally expanded so much I had to put the extra in another bottle. It reminds me of those ballistic bath bombs you can buy from Lush that fizzles dramatically when you throw it in the tub.

2011-03-18T23:55:00.000-07:00

Hey...looky here: Free Rice went into version 2! If you don't already know, free rice is a website where you can take quizzes to earn points that are then converted into sponsoring food through the World Food Programme. Before this, they only had a simpler English quiz, but now they cover more advanced English, and other subjects like Math, Art, Chemistry, Geography and other languages. Something virtuous to do if you have some free time, or want to learn something new. For me, I still think English vocabulary is the easiest, because even if you've never heard the word before, you can sometimes guess what they mean by linking their root word to some other word that you do know. Btw...my geography sucks...maybe Asian geography is still ok, but the rest is just guesswork.

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Today, I saw an interview through a Facebook link saying that an earthquake may be more likely to happen in the following week: this Saturday up to the Monday 9 days after that, due to the pattern of earthquakes happening around the Pacific ring of fire, the beached dead fishes and the moon being the closest to earth for the past 20 years.(That date, ironically, is exactly the dates of my Spring break holiday,I guess those who are going off for a holiday further away can feel some relief) A lot of people say that it's impossible to be so precise with predicting earthquakes, but that got me a little bit concerned. Even if it doesn't happen within the next week, it is apparently still more likely to happen within the next 3 years.

So I think it's better to be safe than sorry, so since Fleet Week and the Earthquake drill last year, I've prepared a go-bag, which I put under my bed. My roommate scoffs, but I'd like to think I'm not as blithe as her. I've been doing some research about what to do in the event of an earthquake, and what goes into a go-bag. It's a bag that contains emergency supplies that you can quickly grab and run if you need to.It's not such a pain to assemble one, since most of the items are stuff you'd use on an everyday basis anyway, so just put your extras in the bag. Coming from a country where 'natural disaster' only means haze and slight floods in some parts of the city, making your commute to work such a bummer, I have a lot to learn about earthquake preparedness. This is a good site, that also has a slightly more thorough list of things to put in a go bag: 72hours. 72 hours as in emergency supplies should cover for 3 days. Oh yeah, in case of a quake, you aren't actually supposed to run, you are supposed to duck and cover, and get indoor and under sturdy furniture if possible.

I'd already had that bag for a few months now, but after watching the interview, I decided to revise it a bit. Among other things, I decided to buy a torchlight to go into the bag. So I went around looking for one. Before this I was considering buying only a book light, so I can use it to read when I feel like lazing around on my bed and not disturbing my roommate, but decided that in an emergency, I won't want to be stuck with something so small and flimsy. Back to the main story: I went to a few outlets of the local convenience store, and saw that most of the flashlights were already sold out, those left were either book lights or those bulky box shaped torchlights that look like the handphones from the 1970s-or-whenever-that-was that run on batteries the size of car batteries. I finally found some at the branch near my uni's main building, and when I got there, there was also another person buying a torchlight, one of the last 3 standard ones on sale.(So I guess after we'd bought ours, there'd only be one left for one lucky person,huh?) So I think that panic is starting to waft around SF (incidentally, there was some trace amounts of radiation also wafting around SF today, at levels not harmful to health).

Another worry is that, if Japan has a tsunami, and I think SF is too uphill to worry about that, there's still fires to worry about, because of all the ruptured gas pipes. The last time an earthquake happened, fire was one of the main problems, and destroyed all the buildings west of Van Ness Avenue. Apparently they decided to demolish all the buildings along Van Ness to create a barrier where the fire couldn't spread, that's why Van Ness is such a wide road today.Err...wait...might have gotten the geography wrong, but the story was something like that anyway. Either way, it's still worrying since even on a daily basis you can hear fire trucks all over the place. Also, the sturdiness of the buildings here are a bit questionable. Maybe not the modern skyscrapers with the tough building guidelines, but what about the older buildings with the stingy owners who don't want to take earthquake precautions and renovate?

I hope nothing happens, but there's always that nagging bit at the back of my head thinking what will I do if something really does happen. The stuff happening in Japan is like an ongoing nightmare, and that's only the radiation problem, people seem to have forgotten about the quake and tsunami rescue efforts in Japan and New Zealand, with so much to worry about.

2011-03-17T01:36:00.000-07:00

Food entry.

I'm currently in the stage where I just randomly chuck whatever I have in the fridge together to make a meal. I imagine if I was in one of those reality TV cooking competitions I would have gotten yelled at several times. Just now I got hungry, and without any ingredients that seem to match each other in my fridge, I made pancakes with frozen corn and black pepper in it, and ate those with a little mayonnaise, because that's what yeenyees do when left to their own devices. Such strange animals.

But with the Spring break coming, I think I can do a little more experimenting with new and proper recipes. As usual, on Wednesdays, I had Mexican food for lunch. My method of selecting what to eat is: if you haven't tried it before, that's what you'll get. So today, I got acquainted with refried beans ('re' apparently means well cooked, not cooked 2 times) which tasted like good comfort food, so that'll probably be one thing to try making. It's basically mashed pinto beans with spices in it, but feels very filling when stuffed into the chimichanga I had for lunch.(I was curious to try chimichanga since one of my lecturers said the model we're working on this term was named after it)

Also, I want to try making Japanese rice balls. So I googled a recipe and found a site, and now I feel like trying a whole list of Japanese recipes. Just a few simple stuff like cold tofu and zarusoba, those kind of things. It also helps that I can walk to Japantown and get a few supplies. I like my little collection of spices and sauces...

Lately as well, I've been interested about 'superfoods', since I have freedom to buy my own groceries and don't buy meat. I think even psychologically it helps and makes you feel happy that what you are eating is doing you good. Most often on the list are things like berries(especially blueberries),goji(wolf) berries, yogurt, eggs, nuts, beans(the darker the better), salmon, broccoli, sweet potatoes, oats, tea(especially green) , whole grains and even chocolate.I know the list probably has something to do with marketing strategies, but all the same it's fun to choose snacks from the list and try a few things I haven't tried before. I even found a section in said website about zakkokumai, which is rice plus any kind of grain.Premixed bags of grains are sold in stores, but I think the fun part about it is you can buy your own grains and customise you mix, for something with a more complex taste and texture instead of the usual white rice that you eat with your dishes.

2011-03-09T22:46:00.000-08:00

Walking to and from classes more regularly nowadays allows me to indulge in one of my favourite games, which I call "Quick, male or female?". The rule of the game is to look at passersby and try to guess if they are dudes or dudettes.

scandalous. i know right.

The reason being, I think that a lot of people in SF look androgynous. And before this I thought that Asians are pretty androgynous. I dunno, maybe it's just me, but sometimes I swear I cannot tell, especially if they have long hair and are wearing a coat. Plus there are a lot of AAU students around the city, and AAU students are pretty dandy regardless of gender. It's normal to see guys wearing dress shoes and fedoras with small feathers in them, to class. Or girls with tri-coloured hair, meticulously styled and tied. (TOA students: remember those times you were so sleep deprived, you didn't even comb your hair before class? Well, this is not like it)

Also, I always mistake some people as being Chinese, when actually by their surname they are probably from one of the Latino races. Not being racist or anything, I just surprise myself sometimes.

This has all probably got something to do with human evolution and coming closer and closer to the super average human, right? Like the way they say people from mixed races and androgynous looking people have better genes...

So I'm going to leave you with a pic I found online recently, this is Andrej Pejic, a male model based in Australia, who is almost synonymous with the phrase 'androgynous model', at least by my impression anyway. Apparently he's been modeling women's clothes as well. Anisa and Yilyn, I know you love this.

2011-03-05T19:52:00.000-08:00

Here's a pic of an experiment I did. I put twine in the oven to make them different colours. It was most effective when I put them directly on the bottom of the oven and flattened them with my baking pan, so that they could be heated up the most. Then leave them in for different amounts of time to get different colours. But what I like is how the colour got richer as the twine got tanned. My plan for using this is to try hair wrapping, whenever I'm free (maybe in 2 weeks time when my uni takes a 1 week break) Hair wrapping is when you tie small locks of hair together, although it's too bad I don't have any charm pendants to tie together.See...this is the benefit of having lala culture in Malaysia, surely can find charms easily.

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In other news, I just decided to buy 2 books online, which can be found in the library, but are so hot on demand, they might as well don't have them. Also, they are useful in the long term if I want to go into organic modeling, I think.

I managed to get at least a flip through at the library though, and the books are really packed with information. Also, I learnt something about buying stuff online: you can easily find discount coupons by just googling for coupon codes. Then plan out a strategy for getting free delivery, usually you have to purchase above a certain amount to get free shipping, but in the case of Borders, they have shipping to the branch nearest to you and you can go pick it up there, which is free. The benefit is that sometimes there are better deals online not offered at the store. So in the end, I managed to get 31% and 40% off for each book, and free shipping :D

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This past week has been pretty hectic, so I hope things can get resolved by next week. First of all, I had to plan my Autumn classes, which involved meeting the student advisor and animation school director a few times, with many things not going according to plan.

Then I went looking for 2 of my sculptures that had been left at the uni for firing, which for awhile seemed to have gone missing. Currently, the uni has found them again and I can get them back next week. The director of the school of sculpture was really nice about the whole thing though.

On top of that, I've been finding one of my subjects a little difficult, and have been slightly pissed off at the lecturer for giving bad comments after all my hard work, and pissed off at myself for not being able to achieve the result I want even after so much work, and expecting bad comments next week for my assignment, and seeing that my progress report for that subject is the lowest of all the subjects I've had so far. I'm hoping to use the 1 week break to improve my project though...it's just that I have 2 classes on the same day and I have to draw a line at where I cannot spend more time working on 1 assignment and go on to the next one. So my only conclusion is that I just need more practise at something I am new to. And a little less fear at someone judging my working style and focus more on the final output. As they say, in art, the end justifies the means, right?

Oh yeah, and my apartment sprung a leak from upstairs' shower area, and that small leak turned out to need quite a major renovation in my toilet. Currently there's still a hole in the toilet ceiling where they hacked to get at the pipes. The maintainance guys were very helpful about it and worked very long on that though.

See...being nice makes a difference to people's life. I think I'd be pulling out my hair if most of the uni people weren't so courteous. There have been 9 unexpectedly nice people and 2 assholes in this article, so that is how I got to know the difference. Tralalalala...

2011-02-18T21:41:00.000-08:00

I had leftover potsticker wrappers from cny, so I made this:

I call it fusion gyoza. And yes, they are supposed to be burnt on 1 side (the original recipe said so...sounds so dodgy, right?) It's fusion because I used green peas and mayonnaise inside to replace bamboo shoots and soy sauce mixture, and they are served with tomato sauce. It actually came out quite good. I tastes like comfort food.

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Huh...guess what...it's been rainy instead these past few days. Rainy ever since Valentine's Day. Maybe it's the accumulated emo-singles cloud above San Francisco that is causing it. The catchphrase these past few days has been "I'm dating myself", most often heard from female uni students when someone asks what their plans are for Valentine's Day. In contrast, people in relationships have been displaying their snuggling at much more frequent levels than is usual.

That's all for weather, and now over to sports.

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Next Monday, we can start registering for intersession,Summer and Fall classes, which feels so fast. It's as if I just finished 1 term and now it's time to think about what to do for my final project(I plan to take preproduction class in Fall). Nothing concrete yet, but I think I will be skipping intersession this time and using the time to do some studying by myself (reading up old notes, watching/reading tutorials from online and the library),it's shocking how rusty I get in such a short time. And then take 1 subject for Summer. I think Summer classes are 2 times a week per subject.

So...what subjects to take for Summer and Fall? I think I might be able to waive 2 subjects(hard surface modeling and basic texturing and lighting) from the list of required subjects given to us, and replace them with another 2 (animal anatomy and Z Brush classes sound good) Preproduction and Cross Cultural Understanding finish off the pool of 4 subjects; 1 for Summer and 3 for Fall.

Oh yeah...time to set appointments with the Animation department director and Student advisor to plan my schedules. How romantic!*sarcastic*

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In other news, I went to see Avenue Q last Tuesday! It's quite a simple story and I've sort of memorised the lyrics already, so it's not like it blew my brains out, but it was still interesting to see how they economised on cast and backdrop, since they only have 7 cast members and 1 set piece, but have many more characters and locations. The main actor and actress for Princeton and Kate were really good though. Eventhough they were performing with puppets, their facial expression and body language was what you should be watching. Plus it feels more fun when you get to laugh along with the other audience, it feels more funny.

Only drawback was when the uni bus came late to pick us up and the theater security tried to shoo us out into the rain so they could close up for the night.

2011-02-10T15:23:00.000-08:00

It's been a sunny Winter, so it's good weather to go jogging even around the city. It so funny because I passed maybe half a dozen iconic sights and tourist attractions on my rounds.

Lombard street crooked road. At last I got to see it. Not really much actually, it's just 1 block long with some plants at the side.It was pretty cute to see a smart car drive down the road though...
Fort Mason. Used to be a navy dock, but now it's more of a park. Downhill from here, you can see the docks. Can jog and hear the sound of the ocean.

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More CNY photos!
My new table layout. Finally got the card from my parents. Thanks! Also, some Japanese sweets from Xiao Wen and Gi, and a pumpkin pie shaped candle from Desiree from last Christmas.
The food we had for CNY dinner. I made the potstickers. Xiao Wen and Gi made pork curry, Chad made the salad, Mandy made jelly, and Justin brought drinks.

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And more food experiments.
Tried to make my version of black pepper chicken and cheese that used to be sold at Asia Cafe. It used to be about the best thing you could eat there, but it was comparatively expensive, so that stall chap lup. For my version, I tried substituting white rice for a combination of red rice, red beans, lentils and pumpkin seeds, and oyster sauce, black pepper and sour cream for the black pepper sauce. Dunno how the stall people make theirs so creamy though, mine turned out dry, maybe it's the type of cheese, or type of sauce... or method of cooking.
Tofu noodle. Very healthy, because it's just boiled vegetables and noodles, but what makes it nice is the fried tofu and chili oil.
Here's a picture of a mixture of grains. I'm so fascinated, I don't think they sell many varieties of rice in Malaysia, eventhough we are neighbours with Thailand. But anyways, this is red rice, black rice, and some lentils to make things prettier. There's also stuff like sweet rice, sweet black rice, wild rice and quinoa sold here. Apparently black rice is very nutritious, and is called forbidden rice because it used to be only for the Chinese emperor to eat.

2011-02-06T21:57:00.000-08:00

Yay! New favourite artist. Richard Macdonald.I found out about him because someone in cgsociety made a 3d model after one of his bronze sculptures. I really like his series of Cirque du Soleil performers sculptures. His work has a lot of the unbalanced dynamic poses thing going on that make sculptures look graceful, and the expression and gestures are really beautiful.

2011-02-06T18:09:00.000-08:00

I was curious about the Lion KIng on Broadway, so I looked up a Youtube preview. Before this I heard comments that it is very good, but I thought it would be wierd to translate an animation, especially with animals, into a broadway show. But it looks pretty good, i think, I like the costumes, and the additional songs written for broadway are really good too.

2011-02-02T19:03:00.000-08:00

Hah. First week of classes is done. It was pretty much what I expected, which means it'll be a lot of work to do. Not impossibly a lot, but still will keep me occupied continuously.

Advanced texturing and lighting class: very fast lecturing.Hope I don't get lost halfway. Must make sure to get a good nights sleep and go to the toilet before class starts. It's like KFC's class(ok, maybe a teeny bit less demanding), except we are using software that we are familiar with. Lucky it's a 3 hour class and not 5, or my brain will be transported back to my dorm in little pieces.

Organic modeling. Probably will be an easier class than texturing. The lecturer made it clear that he prefers Maya over ZBrush, even though we will be using both, so I'm ok with that. I have to take ZBrush slowly, seeing that I've never used it before. Either way, ZBrush will be studied deeper in organic modeling 2. Looking forward to next week's class when we get to see each other's portfolio.

Ecorche. Nice small class. Amusing lecturer. He's one of the elder lecturers in uni. Don't know if it's just a coincidence, but the elder lecturers that I've gotten, even in TOA, tend to be more amusing and philosophical, like David from photography.

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So my plan of attack is to

1) review my old Maya notes

2) review the online tutorials that I have and also check out the video tutorials from the library

3) visit CGsociety more often. I'm a bit behind on the inspiration department currently

which is a lot to do, feels slightly overwhelming when I think of the stuff that I planned to do, all the extra reading for the subjects that I took last semesters, and the fitness regime and field sketches which I might or might not be able to cram in.

2011-01-31T18:13:00.000-08:00

Yay! I'm going to watch Avenue Q.Can't wait. Hope it won't be a disappointment. Now I'm all stoked up to go watch another musical that's coming to SF: Billy Elliot. I hope campus life is going to organise a group to go see it together. I suspect they have a broadway thing once every term.

2011-01-30T22:38:00.000-08:00

I shifted back to my dorm yesterday. Sigh...I'm going to miss Ingleside. I came back to the city and straight away was greeted by noise pollution from the traffic and shouting drunkards. Plus homeless people at every traffic light when you are waiting to cross the street. And my apartment is like a miniature version of the Ingleside house. Hopefully I can find somewhere there to stay in Summer onwards when my contract with the dorm expires. What I like particularly about Ingleside is that you can walk to the beach, or park (there are many) and can see the sunrise and sunset.

Sunrise. Sometimes I purposely wake up early to catch it.
Lake Merced. Good for jogging around.
And after passing Lake Merced, I can go to Fort Funston. It's this area with natural scrub and the seashore next to it. Lots of people bring their dogs to play there. I've seen some crazy people surfing there as well although it's considered dangerous because of the strong currents and cold water.

There is a mixture of white and black sand on the beach. I was wondering what that was, but after putting my camera case on the ground, I think I found out. The black sand is probably some kind of metallic material.

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Here are some pictures of new recipes I've tried.
Mushroom soup. Made from scratch. I used milk instead of heavy cream. Not too happy after I found mysterious fatty clumps in the soup, I suspect it's got something to do with the mushroom water (which had some sort of acid preservative) interacting badly with some other ingredient...probably either the butter or the milk. But other than that I think the taste was not bad considering I've never tried making mushroom soup before and I substituted some ingredients. Frying mushrooms make them smell and taste really good :D
Mushroom and potato curry. I bought too much mushrooms and was thinking of as many recipes as I could to finish them up. I just remembered I'm not too big a fan of coconut milk, eventhough I miss Malaysian food. Coconut milk only tastes good in small amounts and in nasi lemak.

Cinnamon (mini) pancakes topped with yogurt and mixed fruits. I dunno if I'm weird, but I like making my pancakes small.

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Sigh...so tomorrow classes begin. 2 computer classes(organic modeling, advance texturing and lighting) on Monday and 1 sculpting class(ecorche) on Wednesday. I feel kind of intimidated by this term's schedule. Hope I didn't bite off more than I can chew by substituting an easy traditional art subject for an advanced computer subject. I'm just hoping it'll be ok since the animation director allowed me to take the subject in the first place. And I was further intimidated just now when I found out I mistook the time for one of my Monday classes (I think I've got it right now, so I don't have to wake up early tomorrow) and that one of the lecturers just got swapped.

Gah...make some friends. Keep a positive mindset. Everything will be ok. Om.........*yoga pose*

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Oh yeah...besides that, I finally managed to keep up to date with what campus life and recreation is organising this term. 2 things I'm excited about. #1, they are forming a group to go see Avenue Q at the Orpheum, and tickets are only $20 eventhough it's for opening night and they are orchestra seats. So I think I have to rush to buy it tomorrow morning. I think a lot of people will be interested in that.

#2, they are also organising a 3 day trip to Yosemite park, which is $80(accomodation, entry fee, transport and 4 meals). Still have to think about that, but it sounds fun, and this time I'm actually free on those 3 days, so it's still plausible that I can join them.

2011-01-27T10:31:00.000-08:00

Milk carton says "yes" to Earth Hour. What about you?

Pledge your support by clicking on the light switch up at the top of this page. It's more than being about saving 1 hour worth of electricity, its a worldwide performance to send an environmental message to the policy makers of the world.

*ps: don't use candles or go driving around your neighbourhood instead, that's counter productive. Use your imagination and have a little energy free celebration with your friends and family instead. And please avoid dark alleys.

2011-01-24T17:45:00.000-08:00

Went to Napa Valley last Saturday. It's well known as an area that mainly has vineyards, so Mandy, Chad, Justin and myself went there for wine tasting and to enjoy the view. It's around 1 1/2 hours drive away. First stop, Robert Mondavi Winery. In the end it was the only stop where we tasted wine. Tastings are not free, so after Mandy had bought her wine here and went past her budget, the guys weren't eager to do anymore tastings.

The view here is really good,plus Robert Mondavi Winery's architecture has a really pretty rustic style.

Pity it's winter, so we don't actually get to see grapes growing.
Next stop, Plump Jack Winery. Much smaller than the first one. But it would be a nice place to stay, much quieter than the city.

Last stop, I can't remember the name of this winery, but it has a small museum with antique parlour toys which are like the ancestors of movies(zoetropes, antique projector-like devices called magic lanterns, etc.).
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Well, Ok, now for a small side story, since this freaked me out a bit. I found a blood orange among the pile of regular oranges that I bought. At first I thought it was spoilt or something, but after a bit of research online, I ate it and I still feel ok. I haven't eaten blood oranges before, but it tastes a little bit different than the regular types.

2011-01-12T22:57:00.000-08:00

Decided to do some research on Coca Cola and read for myself if the myths about it are true; the myths that it used to have cocaine in it, and the myth that they invented Santa Claus.

So based on what I read from Wikipedia,

1) Yes, it did use to contain cocaine. Coca:coca leaf(cocaine), cola: kola nuts, that gives it caffeine. Coke used to contain 9 milligrams of cocaine in a glass, but the drug was removed in 1903. Nowadays, only the leaf extract is used as a flavour.

2)They didn't invent St Claus per se, but they did use the red and white image we are familiar with in an advertising campaign illustrated by Haddon Sundblom. Apparently the red and white suit was already popular at the time.

and now time for somemore fun facts:

3) Coke was originally intended to be sold as a patent medicine (substance of questionable medical value, snake oil, etc) because carbonated water was believed to be good for your health. It was 1886 after all. Amongst the illnesses that it was supposed to be able to cure was morphine addiction, dyspepsia, neurasthenia,headache, and impotence. I'm not very much in the know, but perhaps cocaine addiction and diabetes were preferable?

4) Here are some fun competitors from other countries:

Coca Colla, from Bolivia. Same main ingredient, same brand colour, but it's an energy drink!

Mecca Cola. Launched in France, based in Dubai. A pro-Muslim alternative if you don't support the US.
And my favourite:from Iran, Zam Zam Cola, the unofficial soft drink of the Haj! (I didn't make that up, it's on Wikipedia)