Iron Chef ala College Square Episode 1

I'm sure most of you had watched the Japanese series Iron Chef, where each week a challenger will challenge one of the four culinary masters in Japan and try to beat them to earn "...the people's ovation and fame forever." If you haven't, Wikipedia gave a good description here.

As the original Iron Chef stopped production in 1999, I seek to revive the series and after a few hours hard work, I'm proud to present Iron Chef ala College Square Episode 1!

Today in Iron Chef ala College Square, an esteemed challenger representing Italy came to challenge The Iron Chef Malaysian of College Square: Phiawiz Cutisan.

Iron Chef Malaysian Phawiz Cutisan starts folicking in the kitchen since he was five years old. He started working as a rice cooker before being promoted to egg frier and instant noddle stirrer two months later. He subsequently enjoys a rapid ascent to vegetable cook and meat cook and later head cook of his family. He now works as head chef of the Michelin 3 stars rated 2109 cafe in College square, where he also coach two protege to be the next iron chefs.

The Challenger today in Hasaih Oncerati, an impressive cook of high calibre, famed for his skill in cooking "very delicious food". His speciality is half-packet Bak Kut Teh and his unique chicken drumstick chopping technique. Due to his aversion towards fame, he declined to be shown in this post.

The theme today is Overnight Rice (hint: that is juz rite for cooking fried rice)

So after a few seconds pondering what to do with the theme ingredient, both the challenger and Iron Chef set to work, bearing in mind the one hour limit. Here are some pics of them in action:

The Iron Chef Malaysian engrossed in cooking a storm!


The ever secretive Hasaih showing off his cutting skills.

And after one hour of hard work we see what they manage to come up with:

The scrumptious Nasi Goreng kampung Malaysia ala Cina by the Iron Chef Malaysian. Filled full to the brim with authentic lap cheong, dried shrimps, spinach leaves, minced meat and capsicum, topped with a generous amount of fried anchovies, a mouthful is reputed enough to make you feel that you are already back home in Malaysia, enjoying the dish at a mamak stall there instead of eating the overpriced stuffs in Melbourne..

Nasi goreng lobak dan ham by the challenger. A surprisingly simple yet elegant fried rice that is unique and not found in any restaurant all over the world, the challenger is surely banking on the surprise element here to umm, surprise the esteemed Iron Chef.

And now its judging time. The judges today are: Celebrity Romance Fiction Writer Jooninho Shinchan, Food Industry Lovers Association (FILA) representative Lami Kongnisan and 'Watching 30 episodes Cantonese Series without stopping' World Record Holder Owl Loonitori.

So after sampling the food offered by both challengers and after much delibration here's the verdict... the winner of Overnight Rice winner is....

"DRUM ROLL"................................

Iron Chef Malaysian Phiawiz Cutisan! Congratulations to the Iron Chef!

No surprise there... despite the gallant efforts of the challenger, the Iron Chef reigned again! Watch out this space for further challenges. If you are interested to challenge the iron chef, pls put you details in the comments box down here. Hope you enjoy our maiden episode today. Thank you for your time!

Disclaimer: The only reason this post is up is to humour the audience. There is no malicious intent and the whole episode shown is fictionious and the actors are there just to create an air of authencity. Hope you enjoy the post!

Soccer fever

It's never cheap when you are so unfortunate to fall sick while overseas. At home, there's mum and dad to foot your medical bill, but overseas it's a different story.

Wondering why I haven't been blogging the last few days? Yeah I fell sick.

I went to the doc and after examining me for 10 measly minutes he came out with this diagnosis: Soccer fever: a rare seasonal malady that is highly contagious but not deadly. Usually happen in a four-year cycle and last for one month each time it strikes. Males are more prone to the disease compared to females, which the ratio being 10:1, hence the suspicion of it being a Y chromosome linked disease. If not treated, can lead to depression and lifelong regret for missing one in a lifetime moments.

With the prescription from the doc, I went to the pharmacist across the road for the medication. And here's what the pharmacist gave me which subsequently burnt a big hole in my pocket:

HOW TO TREAT SOCCER FEVER:
1) Switch on the television and watch the soccer match shown at least once a day until all the symptoms ceased. This may take a whole month.

2) Smith chips: $1.60 per packet x 20 packets. Take one packet per day in conjuction with treatment number 1. Poor adherance may cause bloodied finger-nails due to subcoucious nail-biting during bouts of attack.

3) Nike Total90 soccer boots $30. Take once to prevent any injuries caused by spontaneous urge to kick football in a water sodden slippery pitch. The urge is a side-effect of treatment 1.

4) Nike soccer ball $10. Keep it near you when watching a soccer match. It can be used to let out any steam caused by the impotencies of those actually kicking the ball on TV. Warning: excessive usage may cause broken furniture.

5) Disease identification tag $2.50. This is to prevent from being beaten up by people who are scared to contact the disease. All disease sufferers wear this tag to identify each other and those not interested to share the pain caused by the disease will be wise to stay away when they see this tag.

I had been diagnosed with this disease two weeks ago, so it means that I will only be well again in two more weeks. Hence don't expect to see me on the streets during the next fortnight (due to the sickness and the $70++ hole in my pocket) and yeah please wish me have a speedy recovery!

A tale of two studies

A thousand words picture. Enjoy.

Life's a Pharm

Was watching Grey's Anatomy when this crosses my mind: Why there aren't any serial or sitcoms that are based on the lives of Pharmacists? There are a plethora of Medical series: Grey's Anatomy, Scrubs, House, ER and Chicago Hope but not even one Pharmacy series. That's bloody unfair! Being pharmacists are glamourous too and their daily occupation can be also a cocktail full of the daily suspense, life-death situation, decision dilemma and lovey-dovey relationships. Hell, if they make a pharmacist orientated drama, we wouldn't be facing a shortage of pharmacists now.

Making a series on Pharmacist's life is not so difficult at all.. even I could do it..Let me teach you how.

First, you need a handsome guy as the male lead.


Second, you need a pretty girl as the female lead.


Then you need to throw in a support cast full of weirdos.

The whole idea is at the end of the season, the gal fall for the guy and they open their own pharmacy and live happily together forever. The weirdos are there to spice things up.

Then you need the location and an interesting title:

The brand new pharmacy series: LIFE'S A PHARM

Now the scenarios:
Of course in any love story, there will be lotz of complications, like
A male patient fall for the female pharmacist.
"after I exit this hospital, I'm going to your place everyday for panadol.."


Or can have some doctor-pharmacist relationships
Supervisor: "Litigate! you must report him! the doc is too careless! He nearly killed the patient!" Pre-registant Pharmacist: "I can't..he is my boyfriend... "


Of course, some other gals have to fall for the good looking guy too.
"oh cutey..the sleeping pills you prescribed were simply exceptional... I kept dreaming about you last night..


Then there are those arrogant docs who think they are cleverer and always right (if you are always right then you don't need pharmacists to look out for your mistakes, docs..)
Doc: "Me making a mistake? you must be nuts... I had been practising for 15 years and been in med school for 7 years..."
Pharmacist: But you prescribed tamsulosin for that guy who is just 30 years old. it can lead to him being impotent you know..."
Doc: (oops realised his mistake) He's been sleeping with my wife and I wanna make him impotent cannot meh. Nevermind, I'm not angry with him liao. Give him prazosin instead! See I so nice guy!


Then there can be some funny situation:
"are you sure you wanna get some viagra for your husband?"


Junkie looking customer:"I wanna two packets of clarinase please... Ah-Coo!"
Over-zealous pharmacist: "I can't give you Clarinase, you know, you look err..."
Junkie looking customer: "I'm sick can't you see! Ah-Coo! I want Clarinase!"
Over-zealous pharmacist "But you might use them to make Speed. I can't give it too you.."
*Knock-out punch.*

Of course a pharmacists job isn't complete without some extraporaneous fomulation job.


Consider a scenario where 2 pharmacists (the leading actors lah, who else) are confined in a room making cream:
"oooh... see the cream... so smooth.. oooh... so white...so soft...come, let me apply some cream to your face..."


then they can have a battle trying to smear cream over each other in every concievable body parts and have a creamy romantic time..

Easy right? So can anyone out there make a drama about pharmacists real soon please...PLEASE..? I wanna be in a glamorous occupation with lotz of gals swooning over me when I graduate...

P/s: Tamsulosin in a alpha 1 adrenoreceptor antagonist that is used to treat benign prostate hyperplasia in older men. One side effect of tamsulosin is that it can lead to impotence. Clarinase, a nasal decongestant, contain pseudoephedrine, which can be easily transformed into amphetamine (Speed) in backyard lab. Speed is a street drug that can make you 'high'.

My exam venue

After reading Chang Yang extolling about his World Heritage Listed exam hall, I'm tempted to write about my exam hall too. Well, no, it's not a World Heritage Listed site; no, it's not that beautiful or glamourous or surrounded by a magnificient garden. But it's special and unique too. My exam is at a Race Course. You know, the place where they race horses? Yeah there. Well that does not equal us being horses, but by the way we race against time finishing our exams at breakneck speed, it came pretty close.

Here's some pics of that equally awesome place where I have our exams every semester:



The front entrance of the Caulfield Racing Stadium.



We have our exams here..rite under the sunshine on the green green grass =)



Joking... we have it here inside this building. If you sit at the back, you can turn around and gaze at the green green grass if you are stuck halfway through..

Anyway, juz finished my second exams paper there today. 2 down, 3 to go.

There's no better way to conclude my post than by borrowing a line from Chang Yang: a reason to be proud of having my exams there - who else in the whole wide world have their exams in a Race Course? ^_^

Exams grumbling:
Damn you med chem lecturers! I am paying my fees to sit for a real exams, not doing past-years practice! I can do that at home by myself thank you very much... don't tell me you are all so mentally challenged that you cannot set a new set of questions and need to resort to making a compilation of past year questions and call it an exam. Shame on you!

World Cup muttering:
Damn South Korea.. nice way to (not) take a free kick. No.. i don't mean the one you managed to score.. i mean the one that you can potentially shoot at the 92nd min but instead pass it around. That cost me a bundle okay...
Aussie aussie aussie... nice interesting match..but for those no brainers who kept on blaring their horns the entire nite till I coundn't sleep (and I have an exam the next day)... go to ****
How come no shock results one??

Oh No! I'm Tagged...

Thanks Chang Yang for the tag... I'm so so grateful =P

Instruction: Name 20 people you can think of at the top of your head. Don't read the questions before you write, and tag 5 people to do the survey.

Yeah, before I start, the people I wanna tag are Wee Loon, Heng Liang, See Hua, Kimberly and Kheng Ying. Too bad you ppl have blogs. =P

1. SeeHua, 2. YangYaw, 3. Vincent, 4. WeeLoon, 5. ThowKong, 6. JooShin, 7. Caroline, 8. KhengYing, 9. Freda, 10. Pauline, 11.HuiBing, 12.XuanNi, 13. ChangYang, 14. YongChin, 15. Kimberly, 16. KeanAun, 17. HungJen, 18. ChinFei, 19. Esjay, 20 JiaJan.

Yeah...like Chang Yang said..the list is generated not based on importance but how you name juz happened to pop-up from my head.

1. How did you meet #14? (Yong Chin?)
Met him in INTEC 3 years ago. Forgot exactly how...

2. What would you do if you had never met #1? (See Hua?)
My life will be definitely duller.. this guy is a little crazy and fun to be with. =P

3. What would you do if #20 and #9 dated? (JiaJan and Freda?)
Haha.. such a coincidence.. will have to give them a present they can share together every year coz they have the same birthday..

4. Would #6 and #17 make a good couple? (HungJen and JooShin)
Maybe..maybe.. since they know each other for soooooo long..

5. Describe #3. (Vincent)
Haha.. my oldest friend that I know since Primary 1. Outgoing, hardworking, high achiever blah blah blah...

6. Do you think #8 is attractive? (KhengYing)
No comment. =P

7. Tell me something about #7. (Caroline)
A 9-year-old little girl who is afraid of snakes.

8. Do you know anything about #12's family? (XuanNi)
I think she got an elder brother and sister coz she is so manja.

9. What is #8's favourite? (KhengYing)
Chatting gua.. and listening to songs by David Tao.

10. What would you do if #11 confesses that he/she likes you? (HuiBing)
Same reaction as ChangYang: AHHHHH!!!!! Run!!!! =P haha.. No, i think I'll faint..

11. What language does #15 speak? (Kimberly)
English, Malay, Chinese, Japanese, Cantonese...

12. Who is #9 going out with? (Freda)
#14.

13. How old is #16 now? (KeanAun)
nearly 21...

14. When was the last time you talked to #13? (ChangYang)
I think last Monday..

15. Who's #2's favourite singer? (YangYaw)
Alamak I forgot.. I used to know... damn... weak guess: Jay Chow? =S

16. Would you date #4? (WeeLoon)
Er.. maybe if I'm a girl.. he is so so caring and considerate and.... =D

17. Would you date #7? (Caroline)
Maybe.. =P

18. Is #15 single? (Kimberly?)
Haha I dunno...

19. What's #10's last name? (Pauline)
Ball? =P Joking only... It's Chew.

20. Would you ever consider being in a relationship with #19? (Esjay?)
No..he will definitely put me out in the cold. He is too cool.

21. What school did #3 go to? (Vincent)
Same as me lah. Till Form 5. Now he's in Auckland studying to be like O'Malley in Grey's Anatomy.

22. Where does #6 live? (JooShin)
Down the corridor in the apartment which yellow door squeaked loudly.

23. What's your favourite thing about #5? (ThowKong)
He is as adorable and cute and eager to please as a puppy...

24. What do you think of #13? (ChangYang)
Yeah, I return the compliment: Narcissistic smart guy. :D

25. What do #4 and #19 have in common? (WeeLoon and Esjay)
Same dark coloured complexion.

Well I guess that's it =)
Now need to carry on with my studies. Exams start tommorrow!!

World Cup ramblings:
Damn England.. play more attractive football can?
Damn Argentina.. you do not deserve to win last nite.
Thumbs up Trinidad and Germany.. entertaining football
Damn time zone.. u had me sleeping at 4am 2 nights in a row...
and yeah... damn exams.

My own World Cup battle

Its D-Day tonight. The first match of the World Cup will go on at 1.30a.m Aussie Melbourne time. And you bet I will sit through to watch the entire match...

How I wish I can watch all the matches.. but bad luck that the exams is just around the corner.. and as luck will have it, all the interesting and juicy matches was superbly paired into 'groups of death' with my exam papers... Much as I would like to say "bring on the World Cup! who cares bout the exams..." I'm still weighted down by the responsibility to study. Heck, I am paid to study... For me it will be a titanic battle between World Cup Matches versus Exam Papers.



Who will win? Here's my prediction:

June 12
VCP 2011 Pharmacy Practice II (230pm) vs Serbia and Netherlands (June 11 1030pm)
This I think Serbia and Netherlands will win hands down coz VCP 2011 is in the afternoon. But then hopefully Netherlands will play better than they did against Aussie or I will only watch 45 mins...

June 14
VCP 2021 Medicinal Chemistry II (830am) vs Brazil and Croatia (430am)
This match will be won by VCP 2021.. no question bout that coz eventhough the likes of Ronaldinho and Kaka is tempting, Med Chem is too tough a paper to fool around with. Anyway I don't support Brazil this time round..

June 19
VCP 2031 Pharmaceutics (830am) vs France and S.Korea (430am)
This is a tough call to make.. S.Korea had been such an enigma since their referee assisted exploits 4 years also. This is certainly a mouth-watering matchup with the hero-turn-zero France.. but then Pharmaceut is tough too.. a draw this time round, as I will watch the second half only.

June 21
VCP 2091 Biochemistry (830 am) vs Sweden and England (430am)
Another tough call... must see if England versus Sweden end in draw again or not.. and Biochem is the hardest of the lot (but I like Biochem a lot). Well, still I think a draw... second half only...

June 23
VCP 2041 Pharmacology (830 am) vs Czech and Italy (June 22 1130pm)
This one I think Pharmaco will win. Its a big difference between sleeping late and waking up early. Once I sleep late the second day will be a goner. So too bad Czech and Italy..

And for those of you who are still wondering which team I will support for the World Cup, need I remind you its this team lah...



=) Nah juz joking. I support England this time round. Why? coz their defence is much stronger than both the Brazilian and Argentinian defence.

06.06.06

Yesterday's was the so called devil's day: 06.06.06 as 6 is widely regarded as the devil's number. And I have an interview lined up on this particular day at 6.40 pm (lucky not 6.06pm). Bad omen huh?

Well, yesterday's was my first ever interview in Australia, and it is for 4-week hospital working stint during the summer. So I prepared my CV, Cover Letter, skim and scan through the hospital's info online and read up on interview techniques. No probs there till its time to figure what to wear. Was thinking of wearing my suit but then alwaz figured that Aussie loved being informal. I mean, here lecturers even wear T-shirts to lecture! In the end, decided on some semi-formal wear. Here's a pic of me yesterday before the interview...thought I look real smart...



Big mistake. Coz a lot of them turn out looking like this:



Anyway, the interview was okay.. had some freakin unexpected questions and spent a great chunk of time talking about cheese cake and da vinci code with them. Imagine that. The last question was the craziest: if you are a superhero or have some supernatural activity, who you want to be or what ability you want to have and why. I was like what? Okay maybe I was forewarned about that question.. but still haven't really prepared an answer.. Anyway, the chance of securing a place is like 1/10. So whatever. Juz went there for the experience.

After returning from the interview, felt bored. Scoured OWL's computer and found a few series of Grey's Anatomy. Had heard so many rave reviews of the series so tried watching them. Big mistake. They are so damn funny that instead of the intended 10 mins allocated, I ended up watching 2 full episodes. Lucky have enough self control to stop myself from continuing on the third. Or might as well kiss sayonara to all my intended HDs in the coming exams..

Talk about the devil.. EXAMS. damn.. am suppose to study and not writing this. Whatever. Oh well, am returning to face the DEVIL now.

S.W.O.T

It's swot-vac time! After 13 weeks of tedious studies, it is now the time for a 1 week cramming before the real exams start next week.

What does swot means? well, I'm not sure about it myself initially when I first heard of the term last year. I thought it was an acronym of study with own time, study with-out teacher, start worrying over test or stress working over-time. Nobody ever try to ask what actually swot means. It is just taken for granted that we know what it means based on what we think it means. Sounds complicated?

To role-play it:
Happy Student: "Yeah, I have a swot vac this week!"
Sad Student: "Wow! so nice... our uni didn't give us a break to study..."

"damn.. you got swot vac..."

Sad student knew swot vac as a week without lectures, where one can stay home to study. But he doesn't know the real meaning of swot. So one day if someone ask him..

Sad Student: "That uni have swot vac..."
Pretty Student: "What is the meaning of swot?"
Sad Student: "Huh? swot means... err... I dunno... (brain going overdrive) study with own time gua..."
Pretty Student: "Ohh... I never knew that.. you so clever.."
Sad Student: "hehehehe.. (break sweat)"



"tiu... what does swot means?"

Well, sad student still doesn't know what swot means , and he well think what he perceived is the truth until some nerd comes along and correct him..
Sad Student: "You know, yesterday some sohai ask me what swot means.."
Nerd: "Let me encyclopedia it..."



"come... come ask encyclopedia..."

and the results:

swot1

swot [swot]

or swat [swot]

vi (past swot·ted, past participle swot·ted, present participle swot·ting, 3rd person present singular swots) (past swat·ted, past participle swat·ted, present participle swat·ting, 3rd person present singular swats)

U.K. study very hard: to study very hard and intensively, especially for an examination (informal)

n (plural swots) (plural swats) U.K.

1.	hard-working student: somebody who studies very hard or excessively (disapproving informal)
2.	period of hard study: a period of time spent studying hard, especially for an examination (informal)

[Mid-19th century. Originally a Scottish variant of sweat .]

Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2004. ©

Nerd: "let me google it also"

Swot - a British slang term for an inoffensive person who nevertheless offends his peers by giving too much attention to his schoolwork

From wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

And as a result of this extensive swotting, I will try to spend less time blogging, unless I am too stressed out. Happy swotting to everyone else too!

Cool word rite, swot? ^_^"""

P/s: the role play above, as the name role-play suggest, is just a role-play. It does not bear semblance to anyone and anything that had happened in real life. Any similiarity with anyone, dead or alive, is unintentional. The models' appearance are for aesthetic sake of the role-play and for your entertainment per se. I repeat, they are NOT to be correlated with real life happenings.

P/s 2: Thanks to the ever hardworking OWL for encyclopedia-ing the word out for me and enlighten me on the real meaning of swot.

Oh ya, before I forgot.. another birthday dedication to dish out too: Happy 21th Birthday to Heng Liang (or I think he called himself the sydney feline nowadays). Hope to see you in Melbourne soon so we can visit some bars and hot nite spots together. ^_^

The cost of education

Was discussing about the escalating price of overseas education with my roommates the other day when suddenly it dawned upon us the magnitude of our own education cost. It is so ridiculously expensive that the rise in petrol and electricity bills sound so like...peanuts.

For example my Pharmacy course costs a cool AUS$11925 per sem, minus ammenities fees. That's equal to 13 weeks of studies, which is the equivalent of 13 x 25 contact hours (11 lectures, 2 tutorials, 4 three hrs long prac) which is 325 hours. Divide the sum of money paid with the number of hours, one lecture actually cost me AUS$37, which is RM100. Try compare that to the price of petrol. One hour of lecture = 70 L of petrol. Parents, think how much you can save before sending your offsprings overseas - gallons and gallons of petrol! Sure made me feel guilty of missing class. Too bad they don't calculate the amount of money you have to pay based on the amount of lectures and pracs you had attended. That way some of my friends can actually save a lot.. especially this guy here whose nick is OWL..

Sleep, sleep, sleep always
Money fly away...
Merrily merrily merrily,
Dreaming all the way...
(tune it with row, row,row your boat...)

Can't blame him though, coz he is a medic student and under lotz of the dreaded S-word: Stress). To the rest of you who love to miss class: Wake up! Don't waste ur parents' money! The money you waste by juz missing a lecture can enable me to buy 40 big bowls of my favorite kolomee.

Oh ya by the way, yesterday was my birthday! Haha.. both my roommates tried unsuccessfully to reproduce what they did last year: trying to keep my party a surprise. I am not so stupid to be fooled 2 years in a row k.. perhaps you both managed it last year.. but not this year.. =P anyway thx for the gallant effort. Thx to those of you who sadly had to part with your precious time and money yesterday coz you are 'unfortunate' enough to know me..hehe. I appreciate it very much even though I juz can't manage to elicit any tears yesterday. Too bad I forgot to bring onions.

To sign off.. a happy Hari Gawai to all my S'wakians friends! Gayu guru gerai nyamai.