Author Archives: Ed

Electronics and Water

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Never a good idea.

The Ixus 70 point and shoot we’ve had for years took one too many nose-dives and I’d recently replaced it with a Canon Ixus 115 HS. One cool feature of this P&S is it records in 120fps slow-motion. Fun!

On Saturday it took a dive off my belt, pouch and all, into the (thankfully clean) pisser. It didn’t hit the side of the bowl, it fell straight into the water. It took me 3 seconds to realise it by which time the pouch was soaked through and the camera was wet too.

I didn’t try to turn it on. Wiped it down and sat it, the battery and SDCard in a sealable popcorn container with a Thirsty Hippo desiccant.

Two days later, fingers trembling and all, turned it back on. It powered up! And a test shot.

Note to self: hang the pouch on the belt AND secure it to a belt loop. It doesn’t need to be load-bearing – a loop of string should do it.

Yu-sheng: The Culinary Heritage Wars of South East Asia continue….

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I was invited to a Lunar New Year luncheon by some partners at the Dragon Phoenix Restaurant a couple of days ago. As part of the Lunar New Year celebrations, Yu-sheng was served. This information card was on my plate.

The Original Singapore Yusheng

In the early years, fishermen along the cost of Guang Dong province, used to celebrate the 7th day (day of humanity) of the Lunar New Year by eating raw fish slices. It was introduced to Singapore by a group of Chinese immigrant (sic). During then (sic), plates of raw fish slices are (sic) served with little ingredients and it was a trial-and-error potluck with bottles of vinegar, oil, sugar on the table for customers to add to their own taste. It is commonly found in Fish Porridge stores where groups o Cantonese were seen poking away along streets and alleys of the old Singapore.

Inspired by the above, our funder (sic) Master Chef Hooi Kok Wai began to work with three other Master Chefs (Sin Leong, the late Tham Mui Kai and Lau Yoke Pui), to transform the pot-luck disk into a Chinese New Year Delicacy. They concocted a unique sweet sour sauce, assembled other colorful ingredients to symbolize prosperity in Chinese culture, and finally, “The Original Singapore Yu-sheng” is created, and made its debut on restaurants (sic) tables in 1963.

Instantaneously, the Chinese were fascinated with the stirring & tossing gestures (pronounced Cantonese “Lo-Hei”) of the dish. This “Lo-hei” gesture symbolized the sharing of joy, everlasting good luck and prosperity. It became an adapted local custom to celebrate the Lunar New Year, and the Chefs were honored as the “Four Heavenly Kings” in the Chinese Culinary world.

… and today: Yusheng ‘definitely not from Singapore’, says restaurateur

Another salvo fired in the Great Culinary Heritage Wars!

Update 5 Feb 2012:

Another article in the Straits Times.

The four Heavenly Kings:(from far left) Chefs Hooi Kok Wai, Tham Mui Kai, Sin Leong and Lau Yoke Pui recieved Achievement Award in 2007 at the Tasty Singapore Chef Restaurant Association Competition for creating the raw fish salad as seen here in a file photo.

Now they claim they never invented the dish. And everyone is pushing the origin date further and further back – from 1964, to the mid-1950′s, and now 1930.

My take? The hamburger originated in Germany, but is prepared, sold and eaten worldwide. Countless variations exist, from kimchi and teriyaki chicken to foie-gras.

Does the winner of the “Yu-Sheng Wars” get to collect royalties from every plate of Yusheng sold? The idea of having good food, is so it can be enjoyed and celebrated, to be thankful for.

Sin Chew Daily runs a piece that says the ‘fight for face’ is ‘meaningless and unnecessary’. Not only meaningless and unnecessary. Pedantic, small-minded, anal.

World’s tiniest router

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A colleague bought one of these for travel – and we got to test it in the office. Some budget hotels still only offer a RJ45 connection in the hotel room – and the ultimate intention is to travel only with a iPad.

Tiny. TP-Link’s TL-WR702N

The package comes with a short length of flat RJ45 cable, a mini-USB charging cable, and a 3-pin wall socket ala the iPod/iPhone/iPad wall charger (outputs 1A).

It comes preconfigured with an open WIFI SSID and WPA2 password printed on a sticker attached to the device. Not very strong, but configurable. Theoretically, if you plug this into a hotel’s RJ45, and launched Safari, you should get the gateway page.

$38 bucks a pretty good deal. For $10 more, you get the model that accepts a 3G USB modem dongle. But in this case, I’d just tether it to my iPhone.

More RAD: Muhle R41 Grande and Omega 49

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No… I don’t have RAD. I NEED these. Right….

The latest arrivals: A Muhle R41 Grande, Omega 49 boar brush, some Proraso aftershave cream, and Musgo Real Lime Glycerine Soap.

The boar brush is HUGE!! It came perfumed… after the first lather it started to smell like dead animal. So for now it has been relegated to the bench while it goes through several more test-lather sessions. The hairs have already begun to split. Good sign!

The R41 has been described by many as aggressive, vigorous, direct and efficient. I have 2 shaves under my belt, both dual-pass WTG with a Derby blade. The audio feedback is excellent, and I agree with direct and efficient. My scalp is still here! Seems like this razor makes the full use of the potential of the blade. I wouldn’t have liked it as my first razor, but once you get the hang of things… nice!