Bibi the silky terrier

So one of my side jobs earlier this year was to have a few snap shots of this little dog which belongs to my aunt . A silky terrier by the name of Bibi. Tsk, i know its a cliche name , but ay , what to do , it runs in the family.

Haven't really been doing photo shoots for doggies before except for my late dog,. ah beng using the old digi cam. Tsk, well with the dslr , new possibilities with the photos are explored. In this series , I explored with bounce flash.

Ay, its all about the lighting and how you want light to enter into your sensor I feel , is what photography is about. Light capturing , I'd call it, with the camera as your magic wand to capture light.

Bibi was a very cooperative client whom remain seated when ever the camera is pointed at it .In fact , he is too obedient. I had to hide my camera away and take it out to take a candid shot of him in order for him to give me other poses.

Personally, i thought to myself that its very difficult to do indoor shoots without an external flash system. I had to struggle with the inbuilt flash system with a piece of card board to bounce of the light so that it won't be harsh . A $430 external flash would do a better job with that. Well, photography ain't called an expensive hobby to pursue for nothing i supposed.


Well, it was fun working with the pup during the hour session. It simply couldn't take his eyes of my camera unless food is presented in front of him. Simply lovable. Makes me reminiscence on ah beng though. I wonder where that faggot went to on its own but I'm pretty sure he should be doing fine.

Detail 8

So , today I went for my vocational assessment at hendon SAF commando camp to allow the latter to further access whether I’m suitable for the unit or not. The location of the camp is irritatingly far. Smack in the middle of Loyang Avenue opposite Changi hospital, it made my butt cramp like I was having menstrual right after I alighted from the bus.

Well, being a commando is pretty neat stuff I felt. You get to keep in shape better than the rest of the units, you get to be honored by people and best off, you are paid to parachute =). That’s exactly what I told the officer interviewing me when he asked why I like to be in the battalion. While the whole atmosphere at the camp was pretty niche and all, we are treated to a grueling 11 hours of time spent in the camp mostly on waiting for our turn to be examined.

Assessment was based on several of physical and mental test and of course a test on our keenness to join the camp. Well, it’s just a series of test, which is pretty boring to me.

Well, if I’m in, that means that I've got to be going thru and fro from that camp for the next two years. Sigh, any one got any shorter bus route to suggest to me?

Whose fault is it?

As he looked back at you with his menacing eyes, you see agony and hatred, you heart saw the painful experiences he went through reflecting on those tears trickling down his face. You began blaming yourself, for your inappropriate form of teachings and care for your son throughout the years that saw him mature. Ultimately, whose fault is it?

He was so tiny and fragile the first time you saw him and you began to develop this acute sense of preventing harm from coming his way. His lovely smiles etched in the back of your head replacing any form of stress or unpleasantness.

You know that you only wanted the best for your kid so you worked for those hard earned cash as a hawker in the day and taxi driver by night in order to fund your son for his education. You hired a maid and sent him to child care while you worked. He begins getting used seeing the shadow of you leaving the house early in the morning from the corner of his eyes while lying on the bed and getting the cold pat on the shoulder when he shows you that little star on the piece of paper. Your work persists and your temperament grew thin and nights without quarrelling with your wife were seldom. You began questioning yourself.

Your son's studies were compromised as he finds no pride in his work. Eyes perceived him as a delinquent who will grow into nothing more than an average Joe. His friends were of no good and soon he joined their legacy of doom. There was no one that could stop him or care about him as he finds no one to listen or look after his actions. He finds emptiness at home and took the streets till the day turns night. He began to question himself.

The days passed, your health deteriorates. The school sends you a letter complaining of your son's behavior in school. You got devoured by violence and turn it towards your own son as your temperaments gave fuel to your actions. It was just the cane at first then your weapon of choice changed to the belt and you simply used your fist for convenience the next time round. Your hearts aches more than the pain that was instilled in your child. You question yourself as you hurt him and yourself even more. Fatigue hits you as this nights of torments occur even more frequent then you can ever imagine.

Your son is confused. He turns to his friend for guidance. They don't even know what they want.
He smokes. He skips school. Just to find for his friends who became one of his main reason for living. The pain you instilled in him became numb and soon hatred. His hatred grew and got a better of him during his last birthday that you've long forgotten due to your multiple work shifts. As you held up your fist to deliver a punch to him for yet another mistake, he shoves you away and retaliates with a punch. His tears trickled down his face, he looked back at you with his menacing eyes, you see agony and hatred, you heart saw the painful experiences he has been through and you question, whose fault is it?

We learn more then those who succeed..

Sorry for this long period of absence. Work was seriously the culprit of this prolonged drought from postings. Well, on a fine note, I've finished up all of my work and my final year project has dramatically came to a full stop.

The series of events that happened for my project was terribly devastating and heart wrenching. I guess in life , we all must fall in order to learn how to pick ourselves up and be stronger again.

We'll leave those melancholic thoughts aside, in this post, I'm gonna post about Pine apple tarts!

I've been itching to bake pine apple tarts for a very long time since I've got my oven and when elly said she loved pine apple tarts, i couldn't help but relieve my itch and bake the tarts. =)

As a prologue, i went online to browse through a few recipes and there was a plentiful of splendid recipes lying around the the net i tell you. Well, i especially liked this one from a baker's video blog.

Well, I'm not going to go into indepth details on how the tarts are made, most like , very basic ingredients that is all adopted from the web's concept.

Lets start of with the filling. I was skeptical about which pine apples i should choose when i found out that there is a variety to choose from. Well, i decided on the honey pine apples from thailand in the end and seriously, if you wanna do this, get the fruit vendor to peep the pine apple for you, it is much more entertaining and efficient to watch them do it then do it yourself.

Next would be to pulverize the pine apple. You can do this by grating , mincing or blending them in a food processor. For this case, Jc is a lazy person who believes in efficiency so i let my blender rip=)

For cooking the pine apple pulp, it'ld take a hell of a time. Why so you ask? We need to get almost all the liquid in the pulp out of the latter by vapourizing them. Seriously, a flame thrower would be good how ever, you can also do that by using your frying pan . Using a non stick pan would be ideal to ease the hassle of washing up, how ever, a normal would do fine too.

Pour the stuffs into the pan which is heated over with medium heat for around 5 mins and begin cooking . You'll find yourself so anxious that you'll constantly stir the mixture but , thats totally a waste of effort. Just let the mixture boil gently with the medium heat and give it a couple of stirs every 5-10 mins or so . If you don't want to dirty the stove , you could lid the wok. How ever, do cover it halve way so that the vapour can escape . This ordeal will take around an hour or so , and i strongly suggest you put more attention into the pulp at around the later 30 mins where the sauce begins to become thicken. This also meant that you should stir it more often to prevent burning.

Approximately at the 55th minute of so, the pulp will almost be thicken to an almost solid form to that of the thing that comes out of your in built disposal system (under normal circumstances please) . It will be good to add sugar or any sweetening agent at this point of time. Do not add any of those from the start as it will caramelize. Fold what is needed to be folded in and voila, you've got ur fillings done. Let it cool before working on them.

Next is the dough. This is the tricky part as you've got to get the proportions right. I suggest you follow that of those from the website. Get your flour and sugar in the mixing bowl and mix them well together. I suggest you use a whisk for this . Whisk some vanilla essence in the powder mixture. Then cut up the butter and mix them into the powder mixture. I suggest you do this with you hands, wash them of course( who knows how recent did you just clean your in-built disposal system).Keep kneading the mixture until they are consistent and voila, you've got ur dough.

I suggest you shape each of them to balls like what is shown in the pictures and it'ld make it easier to work with. do what ever shapes or design you want and place them on a piece of baking paper on the tray. Pre heat oven to around 190 or so (depending on how old your oven is ,older meant that it'ld need to be higher ). If you are making these tarts to suit a vegeterian's diet then end here and proceed with baking for 10 mins. If not, coat a layer of egg yolk on the top of the pastry and chuck them into the oven for baking. The end result should be splendid. =)