This sucks.

As of August 28th, all users will be able to choose to downgrade their account to Basic through their Manage Account page. Additionally, we will start showing advertising to visitors who are not logged in to LiveJournal when they are looking at Basic Account journals and communities.

Basic Account users themselves will not see ads on any Basic journal or community while they are logged in to their account.

How annoying. So what if I'm logged on and can't see the ads- people who read my blog can and do I want an ad-filled blog? No! So while I've captured the memories of the last 5 years of my life on LJ, it's time to move (or as LGG says, acquiring new cyber real estate).

I will now be updating here. Please update your links and bookmarks ;)

ugh can't sleep. bet it was the red bull i had at abt 5pm today. but mm i love red bull.

recommended consumption (according to wat's on the can) is 3 times a day. imagine how hyper i'd be if i did that, lol.

i'm stuffed but i feel like eating. -sigh-

the weather has been cool the past few nights and i'm enjoying being huddled up nice and warm under my blanket.

it was nice to see the girls again, pity we didn't take any pics.

i love my wifi enabled phone.

Argh! I need to get my computer fixed. I don't know what's wrong but even though the laptop is plugged in to the power supply, it keeps on switching back and forth between the power and the battery. Which I really wouldn't have bothered about, except that the monitor goes dimmer when it's using battery power and brighter when it's using the electrical source. Annoying!

I tried removing the battery to see whether this would stop the laptop from switching power sources, but my laptop just died on me (switched but there was no battery). So I leave the battery in so that I don't lose anything I'm working on.

There seems to be something wrong with the button that gets depressed when you close the laptop. Normally closing the laptop (without switching it off) should trigger the standby mode, but it doesn't when I close mine, so the laptop continues to run and gets hot. Really hot. *sigh* I've tried to manually turn the computer off to standby mode, but that's not 100%. Sometimes it goes to standby mode only after I open the laptop again to use.

Also, I can't seem to play DVDs. I'm not sure if it's the drive, because it plays my Sims2 game CD alright, and I can rip music CDs and read data CDs, I just can't watch DVDs. Or any videos that's being played from a CD/DVD. I'm not sure if it's the player, or the drive. Blech.

Thankfully my warranty is till 18 February 2009, so I think I'll pop by the service center one of these days to drop it off. I've had my laptop repaired before (fried motherboard) and I remember the service being wonderful- they were polite, on time, and best of all, delivered the repaired laptop right to my doorstep! The only problem is the location- it's a bit far so I need to plan when I want to go there.

Anyway, bedtime. I'm still stuffed from dinner, but I think I better sleep soon.

I'm so stuffed. Just got back about half an hour ago from dinner at Olive Tree with the girls. In attendance: LGG, Yummy, DiamondFreak, Che, Sophie and Trin. Food was good. Company was good. We spent more than the allocated half an hour bitching about our former boss, lol. One last stuffing session for the month hehe.

Anyway I need to get myself mentally prepared for the coming fasting month. In a couple of days, it'll be Ramadhan once again, and this time I'm worried how I'll pass my time since I don't have work to keep me busy. One thing's quite for sure, I won't be meeting the girls much to break fast like we did last year since I'll probably spend more time at home. Hehe.

One day at a time, that's how I got through last year's fasting, and honestly, it wasn't all that bad. Preparation was all it took. Just needed to drink lots of water in the morning (I think I finished a litre in the morning when I woke up) to keep yourself hydrated.

The hunger is quite easy to bear, and if I recall correctly, I'd get hungry only towards the end of the day when it was close to the time to break fast. I'll need to check what I eat when I break fast too, because I think the amount of salt one intakes cannot be too excessive.

I'm quite pleased I managed to fast the entire month last year without much hiccup, and hopefully this year will be the same. :)

Woohoo! Finally. So here's the recipe for beef rendang, except it isn't really a recipe with exact measurements. As mentioned earlier, my MIL helped to pack the spices and she approximated everything, but I'll try.



( Come to mama )

Anyway, we started off with 1kg of beef but I'd recommend making this in large batches (3kg of beef perhaps? Just multiply everything accordingly) because beef rendang is one of those dishes that just tastes better a couple of days later. And like most malay-style dishes, this is very unhealthy so just ignore the fact that you're consuming enough cholestrol, fats and calories for your month's intake and just concentrate on how yummy everything is.

I had an entry almost ready to post - but I've lost it. It was one of those super long posts as well as the recipe for beef rendang. *groan*

Anyway, in a nutshell:

- Went on a food safari with Yummy on Friday evening. How it all started was that both our Hubbies had plans (Mr Yummy had a boy's night out and the Hubby had to go back to camp) so she said it was the perfect opportunity to go on a food safari. It really was a win-win situation as she got to eat stuff she doesn't normally have with Mr Yummy, and I got to go to places I don't normally go to because I don't drive.

Decided on seafood at MacKenzie Rex- chilli crabs (we had 2!), cereal prawns, sotong char kuay, chicken rice without the chicken (brilliant!) all washed down with some chin chow. We then decided to try some place off our divine desserts list and ended up at Peaberry & Pretzel at Clementi for their panna cotta. Unfortunately they were out, but we still had a delicious chocolate cake and strawberry cheesecake. Yummms.

- Stayed the weekend at my parents place since the Hubby was off at camp. Spent most of my time glued to the TV watching the last few olympic events (synchronised swimming, team gymnastics) as well as the closing ceremony. I love being able to watch TV till 4am in the morning hehehe. Spent alot of time singing as well, making use of the magic mic that my mom has. Mom and sis joined me as well and we had a great time just belting out tune after tune.

- I've been planning to make beef rendang for the longest time but never got round to it because my MIL just makes such a wonderful version of it, but the weekend was my chance to try out the dish at my parent's place. The MIL was so sweet and helped to pack all the spices so I was lugging around a small little bag filled with chillis, cloves, cinammon, lime leaves and a whole host of other spices. Smelled really good though. Managed to successfully prepare the beef rendang and everyone said it tasted alright - except that there seemed to be something missing. I brought back a sample and it turns out my beef rendang was just not spicy enough. Every thing else was OK. YAAAAAAAAAAY!

- Too bad LGG has promised her mom to go off beef. For good. Which means she'll never be able to try my beef rendang. And chicken rendang just aint quite the same.

- Went to the gynae to collect the results of my blood test and no, I'm not pregnant. And I'm not pregnant because I'm not ovulating. Pfft. I guess my body isn't working. The doctor gave me some hormone pills to take and very simply said, "take the pills, produce eggs, get pregnant." If only it really was so easy. Anyway, not too sure whether to actually start taking them because of the upcoming Bhutan trip. Don't want to risk being pregnant and hiking up a mountain and hurling every half an hour. Oh well, let's see how it goes because patience has never really been my strong suit.

- I've got a new resolution for the year. Yeah so I'm more than 8 months into the year, sue me. I've decided that annoying people will no longer exist in my world and I'll just ignore them. So if you're talking to me and I'm just not responding - you know why! Heheheheh. Well, to clarify this a bit more, I think I'm going to make the effort to not let annoying people affect me so much. Especially annoying people who live in the same house. Life is too short to be annoyed by annoying people. *ignore ignore ignore*

- I'm thisclose to finishing my modules for my driving classes. Oh hmm actually no, not thisclose but this close. Ha, ok nevermind. I've got 2 more manual car driving lessons to go and 2 more auto car driving lessons. And the rest of my lessons will be revision lessons. I've got about 7 weeks to go, 2 of which I'll be in Bhutan. So hopefully I'll do OK.

- Bhutan Bhutan Bhutan! Nepal! Nepal! Nepal! Need I say more? Our tentative travel dates are 4 - 15 October, yippie!!!

- Other random stuff. Things I need to buy today: AAA batteries, Milo refills, a new desk for the room (I found a configuration for the furniture in my room that will be able to fit in a desk!!! No more typing on my bed!!!). I also need to send the laptop in for repair, it's falling apart. Plus, fasting month is coming soon.

the hubby - because of him i do not have to work now and can spend my days cooking and eating and msning and pretty much doing what i want to

my parents and sister - because they tolerate my nonsensical nonstop chattering each time i go back to their place. and because i'm allowed to watch tv till 4am too.

my in-laws - because they are the sweetest souls who love and accept me and treat me like their own daughter

lgg - two words: bhutan trip. i'm sorry we're all such lazy asses but that's why we love you (because you still want to go with us despite the pain)

yummy - two words: food safari. yay for crabs, cereal prawns and divine desserts!