the name of the wind

After having heard so much about this book, I finally got my hand on it last month and then finally got around to reading it two days ago.

The first four chapters got me pretty wrapped up in the whole suspense of the innkeeper Kote's real identity and what he's really capable of. I then had difficulty getting through the next 80 pages as Kote's real identity is revealed as Kvothe and he starts telling his life story to the Chronicler from his childhood days.

Now, at about one quarter way into the book, the pace picks up again as the storytelling reaches the turning point where it begins to unravel why and how Kvothe is who he is now.

Let me share with you Kvothe's revelation when life dealt him an extremely bad hand:

"Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain. Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need.

First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain by stepping through the first door.

Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying 'time heals all wounds' is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door.

Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.

Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or do we have been told."

Incidentally, right after coming across this section, I got to watch the movie Shutter Island over the weekend which clearly illustrates the third door of the mind in dealing with loss.

Kvothe, pronounced as 'Quothe', is starting to intrigue me.

afterlife

Tickets booked for tonight. Can't wait.

Note a few things:

- Resident Evil Afterlife was only very recently released in Australia, about a week ago. And my friends have all watched it by mid September in Singapore. I hate it that everything here is slower than back home.

- Check out the price of the movie tickets. $50 for two. Yes, it's more expensive because it's in 3D (normal 2D version would have been $35 for two - still ridiculously expensive!)... no wonder piracy is so rampant.

- Have I mentioned before I will always try to get seats at row J because my name starts with a 'J'? Just another one of my many weird habits.

kelly's bar and grill

Having heard so much about Kelly's Bar and Grill and how they dish out the best ribs in town with a magnificent city view, even beating my all time favourite Hurricane's at Bondi Beach that serves humongous juicy pork ribs, I decided I have to try it for myself one day.

And so our group of four made a last minute phone reservation to request for a table preferably with a view to which we got a response "You must be joking" which we did not care much for, before trooping down to Bondi Junction after an exciting day at the races. We did get a rather decent table not too far from the edge where we could see part of the city skyline despite the lack of enthusiasm from the server receiving us at the entrance in giving us what we wanted.



This complimentary bread was served promptly after we sat down. It was warm, fluffy and soft, exactly the way I like it; I rarely ever touch bread but in this instance, I helped myself to a generous portion of this weirdly shaped bread. Talking about the shape, we didn't quite know how to cut it equally into four and we had the butter knife hovering above it for a few seconds while we contemplated the number of shape configurations possible...



We ordered this deep fried camembert cheese with cranberry sauce to start with. It was disappointing to the max and actually tasted like something you get in a frozen pack off a supermarket shelf that you just pop into the deep fryer. I also had a serving of french onion soup that was really just lots of onions thrown in a beef stock and brought to boiling point. They must have forgotten to let the onions caramelise in their haste to serve it; the onions were definitely not brown. And to my horror, there was neither cheese nor croutons in it!



Not wanting to pass a premature judgement as we can't really assess a grill restaurant by its FRENCH onion soup, we awaited our mains eagerly, hoping to be wowed. Three of us ordered ribs - both pork and lamb while one decided on a T-bone (cooked rare) instead.

Here's the T-bone with chips and onion rings. I attacked the chips first; it was good. That slightly spicy chilli powder sprinkled all over greatly enhanced the taste of the hot chips. I had a few bite-sized pieces of the steak and wasn't impressed. In fact, as I bit into these bits, I remembered vividly how tender, juicy and tasty the rump steak I had at Hurricane's was and couldn't bring myself to ingest any more of these rare (but had large sections where it was more blue than rare) and rather dry and extremely chewy T-bone.



Here's my pork ribs with baked potato and onion rings. I ordered an additional sauce - Monkey Business which is a tangy BBQ sauce - for dipping into. Due to my smaller appetite these days, I asked for a small serving of the ribs instead of the regular or large so I cannot really comment on the size of those ribs compared to Hurricane's famously ginormous ones.

I first tried the baked potato. It was just simply baked potato. Nothing extra; no herbs, no nothing although there is a small serve of sour cream on the side. This plain old baked potato tasted normal, like what I have at home all the time anyway.

I barely touched the onion rings because they pale in comparison to my dining companion's tasty chips. Finally I held a piece of rib gingerly between my thumbs and index fingers of both hands and sunk my teeth into it. Tried as I did to will the formation of thought bubbles such as "wow that's great!", "Yums!" or "I'm in heaven!", all I could muster was "Oh the sauce is ermmm... not bad."... ... ... the number one gripe I had was that the meat was too dry. You cannot claim to have the best ribs in town if you can't even get the fundamentals right which is preserving the juicyness and tenderness of the meat itself. Everything else, the sauce, the size, the presentation, the sides, etc is secondary.



Even the view didn't quite compensate for the disappointment in the food and service quality. I am now left with an unsatiated craving for a plate of quality good tasting ribs and a deep regret in choosing Kelly's over Hurricane's when considering our dining options on the day.

bowling challenge

For the second year running, my company had this bowling challenge event for our Sydney staff held at Manhattan Super Bowl located at the corner of Botany Road and Gardeners Road. Thanks to the generosity of the Chairman, we only had to pay half of the usual cost for two games of bowling and a selection of gourmet pizzas served on the lanes.



Below are the only two pictures I took with the girls courtesy of Mr Chun's Nikon dSLR. It's amazing how clear the photos turned out in the dim disco lights; it's something my standard camera package (EOS 450 and the 18-55mm lens that came with it) can't achieve. According to the photographer, it's all thanks to the speedlite flash and his newly acquired prime lens.





Here's part of the total score tally after the event. I ranked second out of 56 players, a mere 6 points behind the top bowler who happened to be a guy, and hence earned myself the Top Female Bowler award. If you look at the column 'HSG', I actually had the highest score for one of the rounds at 146; not too bad for someone who hasn't bowled since the last challenge a year ago but still miles away from my personal top score of 176 achieved a decade ago.



And I got this cute little trophy for the night's effort. ^^v

gardens r us & lakeview cafe

I paid a visit to Gardens R Us along Gardeners Road between Mascot and Kingsford to get gardening supplies to start a mini herb garden in the monkey household. There is a Lakeview Cafe right in the middle of its huge compounds, so called because it offers a magnificent view of the Lakes Golf Course as can be seen in this pic below.



You can choose to sit on the main front deck facing the roses section to enjoy your cup of coffee among the subtle scent of multi coloured roses...



Or if you're lucky, you may be able to get one of those three tables out in the open to bask in the early spring sun in the topiary section where you can feast your eyes on all things green and manicured.



I decided to fill my stomach first before embarking on the gardening project and chose a seat on the main deck overlooking the flowers. The below three pictures show the views I had from my little corner seat.





Some weird instinct of mine told me to order a dish that I hate after studing the menu for about 10 minutes...



And it turned out to be the best of its kind I've ever had - gnocchi in a creamy pumpkin parmesan sauce that had a hint of pesto in it and a generous sprinkle of freshly picked herbs from their gardens. I couldn't get enough of the sauce... I had to steal my lunch partner's toast to wipe the remaining sauce clean with. One thing the kitchen could have done is perhaps halve the portion of gnocchi and add 2 slices of crispy toast for dipping into the sauce with instead.



Someone from the next table ordered chicken satay that made me salivate when I saw the dish being served even though I was pretty stuffed from all the carbs... so I'm definitely going back again to try that out.

With a huge sigh of satisfaction from the unexpectedly delicious lunch, I proceeded to check out the herbs section. They have well trained staff who possess knowledge on all things to do with gardening scattered everywhere to tend to your enquiries if you aren't really sure of the whats/hows/whys.



This curly parsley and Green Wizard vegetable and herb mix were among some of the things that went onto my shopping cart.



This is the trolley you push around - mine was filled with little pots of herbs on the top tier. And of course I need a cute little red spade to boost the gardening vibes a bit.



Don't I look like a gardening pro here with my shopping trolley filled with stuff???



Fingers crossed... if the current herbs do well... I may be going back there soon to shop for my second planter box and more plants!

herb garden

Because the supermarkets here sell herbs in such huge packs that there's usually a lot of wastage if we're only cooking for one or two people, it makes more sense to have a personal herb garden at home in the balcony where only the quantities required will be picked off the plants each time.

So this Sunday afternoon was spent on gardening. Below is a dummy's guide to setting up a simple herb garden. It's yet to be proven that these herbs will live long term... let's give them 2 weeks and we shall know...

First, you pour potting mix into the planter box. Dunno what potting mix to use? Just tell the staff at your local gardening supplies shop what you intend to plant and they should be able to advise you.



A close up look at the yucky mix. I shudder to think what could be inside...



Then you simply transfer the little pots of herbs and plant them firmly into the mix. Or you can choose to grow them from seedlings which is much more challenging! Here you see basil which is one of six herbs in my planter box.



Then there is Pawpaw's ingenious idea of planting the roots and stem of some spring onions that were going to be used for cooking dinner...



And ta dah! The monkey household now has a miniature herb garden! From left to right: dill, cute little red spade, spring onions, coriander, parsley, basil and mint.



If these survive for more than a couple of weeks (there is no reason for them not to as long as I water them regularly right???), then there shall be a stage 2 expansion of the balcony gardening project: More herbs! Fruits! Sunflowers!!!

city tattersalls club cup day

I was fooled by the sun into wearing just the skimpy tube dress to the City Tattersalls Club Cup Day at Randwick. It turned out to be a day of extremely strong 80km/h winds with the temperature between 12 and 16 degree celsius. So unlike all these brave souls who ventured out into the open to be nearest to the track, our party of four stayed indoors half the time.



This giant score board details the odds and other critical information before each race and sums up the results after. There were lots of punters doing nothing but stare at it and placing bets the whole day.



It took us a while to familiarise ourselves with the surroundings and the betting system as it was both Vanisha's and my first time to the races.





I am not much of a gambler so I was glad to have the company of my faithful camera.





And I couldn't help but stare at all the elaborate headwear and fancy dresses; everyone including the men were all dressed up like they were attending the most important event of their lives! So I was happily snapping away at all these fashionistas instead of paying attention to the races. We missed Race #1 upon arrival but when asked which horse I would like to bet on for Race #2, I just simply picked my favourite number horse #7 which didn't even make the start!










Besides having an excuse to dress up flamboyantly during the day, going to the races is also a great bonding activity for both the boys and the gals as can be seen below....





We had lots of time to kill in between races in which I started analysing the odds while watching the many planes making their descent towards the runway not too far away... and I am extremely proud to announce I won money in all the subsequent races with a bit of research on the race book and probability calculations. The day became more interesting once you get more involved in the betting.



I even managed to capture some of the horses in action while rooting for my horses by screaming at the top of my voice like everyone else around me.











To sum up my bets for my phenomenal day:

Race 2: $5 on a win and $5 on a place for horse #7 - lost all $10. All subsequent bets were mostly small bets of $2...

Race 3: bet on a win and a place for horse #3 - it came in third but the winnings were pathetic due to the odds. Still in the negative overall.

Race 4: bet on a place for horse #3 - it came in second and I broke even for the day.

Race 5: bet on a win and a place for horse #6 - it came in first and I was positive about $50++!

Race 6: bets on a win for horse 5 and a place for horses 6 and 7 and they came in first, second and third respectively - positive about $90+ at this stage.

Race 7: Because it was our last race, and because there were so many horses in this one, and finally because of the ridiculously high payouts, my strategy was to place $2 on a win for all the horses with payouts >10. Total bet on this race was $30. I figured if I lost all in this race, I still have a $60 profit, but as long as one of the horses won, I would be a few hundred dollars richer - worth the bet. In the end, I lost $3 in this race.

Which made the day's total profit about $90. So all those moolahs spent on the admission and sauvignon blancs were recovered. Cool!!!!



A final group photo before we left. Can you tell from the pic who won and who lost???