This is one thing I've always wanted to learn. Not guitar, not keyboards but percussions. But I'm always so busy. Plus drums are loud, very loud. I would love to have a setup at home but no one is going to allow this. Endless, repetitive practice will annoy even the most understanding family and neighbours.
Catch 22. You need to practice to get good, but you can’t practice because you sound bad and everyone tells you to stop. And even if you sound good, you’re going to be asked to stop because it's getting late, or someone wants to watch TV or just have some peace and quiet. So I never persue this though the desire has always been there.
Early this year, my kids signed up for guitar lessons. And after the 1st session, Rachel decided she didn't like guitar. She switched to drums and she's loving it! Last month she requested for a drum-kit. We discussed a little and agreed that she's probably quite serious about drumming since she managed to stick to it for the last 5 months. So we went to Swee Lee Company and we bought an electronic drum kit. It's the only type we can get without having angry neighbours coming at us.
And then I decided, what the heck, I might as well learn since we've already got the drums. I signed up for lessons that weekend.
I think I'm probably one of the most elderly students at the school. Most of the students are kids. Even the instructors are young. But it's fun! And you should see the expressions of the other parents who are there waiting for their kids when I come out of the studio with the instructor. Hey! I'm a cool mom.
Yesterday I learnt about this place at 54 Woodlands Terrace. It's a factory that provides food products to restaurants, delicatessens and hotels. And once a month, they will open their doors to public.
I checked their website and I was pleasantly surprised to find they would open on 22 & 23 June. That's today! It closes at 5pm. So I got off earlier from work and headed there.
It was quite an interesting place. They actually laid out trays of their food for sampling. There are cakes, muffins, cookies, variety of breads, ice-creams, gelato, sorbet, soups and sauces. The staff were very friendly too. A Sikh kept asking me to try and even scooped the sauces into cute little dishes for me to sample. It was 15 more minutes to closing, yet they were all smiles. Business must have been good.
I was already very keen on the basil pesto and sundried tomato. I just love basil pesto. My brother's basil plant completely dried up. Luckily my mom saved some of the seeds so I'll try re-planting. In the meantime I'll make do with store-bought pesto.
I came away with 3 little tubs of pesto, 1 tub of sun-dried tomato, 2 trays of lasagnes, 1 tray of apple crumple and 10 portions of mushroom cream sauce. They are definitely selling cheaper than anywhere else. And I'm definitely coming back for more next month.
I tried the pesto with chopped tomato on toast just now. It's quite good, though I prefer mine to be a bit more garlicky. Will top up with some garlic when I cook pasta tomorrow.
Here's a Basil pesto pasta recipe I like,
450g dry fettuccine pasta 1/4 cup pesto 1 tablespoons olive oil 2 tablespoons olive oil 1/2 onion, chopped 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 green bell pepper, thinly sliced 1/2 cup fresh sliced mushrooms 2 tablespoons dry white wine 2 tablespoons lemon juice salt to taste ground black pepper to taste 450g shrimps 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
DIRECTIONS - In a large pot with boiling salted water cook fettuccini pasta until al dente. Drain. Stir in pesto sauce and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. - Saute onion and garlic in 2 tablespoons olive oil until soft. - Add green bell pepper, mushrooms and cook for about 3 minutes or until soft. - Stir in dry white wine, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste, and bring to a boil. - Add shrimps and toss for 2 minutes. - Toss the pesto covered pasta with the shrimp sauce. - Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese and serve.
Use firewire to connect your external hard disks if you want to stream from those. I recently bought a USB-only hard disk. The streaming was very slow and video keep stalling as the AppleTV struggled to stream the data.
Had to re-transfer all my MP4s to the firewire hard disk.
I have tried the latest Handbrake software using the iPod presets. The resulting video is alright. So there's no need (unless you have a lot of time and storage space) to convert seperate MP4s for iPod and ATV.
Was catching up on shows I missed. Watched 5 episodes of Desperate Housewives in one sitting. Love the idea of ATV. There's no need to burn DVDs or VCDs, just streamed and watched directly from the computer. Great for those who already has plenty of stored videos.
I have transferred our family photos into ATV's hard disk. The slide-shows with the random transitions, ken-burns effects & background music are great for occasions when relatives & friends come to visit.
GST is going from 5% to 7% in less than a month's time. Already our expenditure is going to go up. And then, out of the blue, NETS decided to raise their adminstrative fees imposed on retailers from the current 0.35~0.55% of purchases to 1.5~1.8%. NETS has become equivalent to cash in our society and everyone who has a bank account has a ATM card for that cashless NETS transaction. And now NETS is going to charge the retailers a higher admin fee for every transaction using the NETS card. Of course, NETS assured us that the merchants have been informed not to pass on any transaction fee to cosumers and that we could complain to NETS should we encounter any instance of merchant charging us a fee for the use of NETS.
Yeah. Right.
And pray tell, what's stopping merchants from increasing their prices now? (Which is what's happening already!) If I'm a retailer, I'll increase my prices now, citing higher operation costs etc and then claim that I'm not passing on any transaction fee to my customers!
Every evening when I turn on the news. It's always about someone raising their prices of this and that. Even the humble postage stamp is going to cost more now.
Profiteering is definitely in the air! The price of milk went up recently. Coffee shops started increasing their prices on coffee and tea. But I only take my coffee black. Yet kopi-O's price also increase. WTF! Looks like we all have to push back our retirement age!
1. My client's foot is ok. She went to the hospital the next day for an X-ray. No broken bones. I offered to reimberse her the medical fees but she refused to accept. Got to be careful :P
2. The birds were gone already, leaving behind an empty nest. I was hoping to see the chick learn to fly. So disappointed.
3. I signed up for drum lessons. My 1st lesson's tomorrow. Really looking forward to it. I had the feeling that the receptionist was very amused when I told her I want to take up drum lessons. I'll show her! Aunty also can be drummer one ok!
4. A tile came off the wall in our airwell. This is the 3rd tile that dropped off. It crashed from 2nd floor into the basement, destroying part of our potted plant on its way down. Really painful to see the lovely plant damaged. And it's also dangerous for us to go into the airwell. Who knows when another tile will fall off. I'm going kick the contractor's ass for this.
5. US TV season ended. So for the next few months I'll have to make do with reruns. I haven't decided whether or not to watch Pirates of the Carribean on the big screen. I definitely aren't going to spend $9 per person to watch shows like Shrek or Fantastic 4. Will wait for the DVDs instead. Have just seen the trailer for Harry Potter's Order of the Phoenix. Looks good. Looking forward to the last installation of Harry Potter too. Will be out in July I think.
6. In another few days will be our 1st anniversary at this current home. Some of the units have changed hands already. The unit next to ours is finally sold and the new owners will be moving in very soon. Have met them. Very friendly people. Not sure where they're from. US perhaps?
This is one thing I've always wanted to learn. Not guitar, not keyboards but percussions. But I'm always so busy. Plus drums are loud, very loud. I would love to have a setup at home but no one is going to allow this. Endless, repetitive practice will annoy even the most understanding family and neighbours.
