my roomie's girlfriend is a regular genius: episode 2

They Say Good Things Come in Threes

Ever wondered what happens when you leave two eggs in an uncovered pot on the stove for 45 mins by which time all the water evaporates and the eggs burst open?

Wonder no more.


And just when you think it takes real skill to screw up hard-boiled eggs? She does it TWICE - in the same day. And did I mention she did it a third time a week or so later?

I feel SO normal!

swearing to uphold

On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to testify.

At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"

Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

The room erupted into applause.

(via Pharyngula)

bite-sized portions of instant goodness

Somewhere on St. Denis is Suite 88 Chocolatier.

The chocolates sit in glass display cases, each single piece on a single square white plate. Two chocolate-coated cherries sit in the next case, along with a handful of chocolate-coated cranberries and three delicate chocolate-coated tuiles. It’s all very minimalist: White walls, white plates, beautiful chocolate. It’s so chic that calling it chocolate makes it sound plain and boorish, it’s definitely more chocolat than chocolate.

I love being adventurous with chocolat with new exotic flavours, especially after my trip to Paris and Bruges last spring. There’s a lovely shop, on île St-Louis along the Seine called Cacao et Chocolat, where I was introduced to strange new flavours like cayenne pepper, cardamom and Venezuelan Tonka bean. (What the hell is a tonka bean?? Don't know but I ate it all the same) In Bruges, the locals showed us the path to chocolat mecca, a place called Chocolate Line where I was rewarded with lemongrass and Wasabi flavours. Yeah, Wasabi, mmmm!

So anyway, i was oohing and aahing at the scrumptious sight to behold and resisting the urge to eat the shop from the inside out, when the salesgirl mentioned that a jalapeño flavour was available. And then I knew it: The bar of dark chocolate with jalapeño (jalapeño!) peppers – it just had to be mine.

This kind of chocolat you put whole in your mouth and let the flavour creep in gently and subtly. The dark chocolate itself was quite exquisite, just bitter enough to make for a good dark chocolate, yet sweet enough to draw out the spiciness of the jalapeños. Halfway as you’re savouring the chocolate, the jalapeños kick in, slowly at first then hard and fast progressively until finally all you have in your mouth is this spicy prickly aftertaste. It’s this aftertaste however, that kind of ruined the experience. It felt like a fake chili aftertaste, kind of like how you can tell when powdered chocolate is used in hot chocolates instead of chocolate syrup.

But the highlight of this chocolat expérience were the shooters. You bite the tip off and knock back the shot of liquor inside, before feasting on the lovely outer shell, letting it melt in your mouth while swirling it lightly with the liquor. Bite-sized portions of instant goodness! Mmmmm dee-lee-cious! I had a Soho lychee liquor one, which blended perfectly with the chocolate without either overpowering the other, making it smooth, fruity and chocolate-y all at the same time. It went down so well, it felt completely guiltfree! I’ll definitely be heading back to Suite 88 for more shooters, Absolut vodka, sake and Kahlua at least. I only wish they had more flavours, like Bailey’s, Manzana, Cointreau or champagne.

Here's a picture: It's amazing what Photoshop can do! And of course, I'm trying to be arty farty. Lindt chocolate shavings lying around!

now THIS is sudoku~

Sudoku is so hot now it has its own World Sudoku Championships.
Follow the link, scroll down and try your hand at their sample puzzles! It will blow. your. mind!!

Clique sur le lien et essaie les exemples du championnat sudoku.. C'est un truc de dingue~

preemptive culling

No, I’m not talking about sick birds.

Some time ago, Merck and GlaxoSmithKline each announced positive results for a vaccine that will help protect women against the human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV, a DNA virus with over a hundred strains, is more commonly sexually transmitted than one would imagine. In fact, more than 50% of all women will become infected with HPV during their lifetime, but for the most part, these are restricted to benign warts or pass undetected. There are two oncogenic strains however, which are irrefutably responsible for cervical cancer, the second most common form of cancer in women worldwide and kills about 270,000 women a year. Both vaccines are reported to prevent 90% of new infections and ALL persistent infections.

Having a vaccine is a good thing right? Not according to some religious lobby groups.

Their problem with HPV is that it is sexually transmitted, so to prevent infection, vaccination has to be carried out before a girl becomes sexually active.

Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex."
- Bridget Maher, Family Research Council, a Christian lobby group

Since it protects against a sexually transmitted virus at a young age, some conservatives actually think that young lusty females will be encouraged to be indulged in as much pre-marital sex as they want, because ‘Hey! I’m vaccinated!’. What these conservatives advocate is abstinence from sexual activity as the cure for all evils. This is of course, true – in theory. I’m sure these conservatives are thinking to themselves ‘My children are so virtuous, they don’t need vaccination.’.

The truth of the matter is that people are having sex, and we cannot stop them from having sex. Just as was the case for condoms, IUDs, birth control pills and abortion, these measures will surely make it less worrisome to engage in sexual activity and people may find reason to engage in sexual activity but not any more than if such measures weren’t available. An epidemiologist put it nicely: Instead of seeing the HPV vaccine as a green light for sex, why not think of it as a red light for cancer?

What moral precepts allow us to think that the risk of death is a price worth paying to encourage abstinence as the only approach to sex?"
- David Baltimore, Nobel Laureate

Do all these holier-than-thou conservatives feel that it's fair to subject all women to the restraints of their religious beliefs? My cervix is mine to protect, you piece of crap.

My theory:
The US is anticipating more casualties in Iraq and possibly Iran, Palestine, North Korea and any other country that Bush is told he shouldn’t like. The American total male-to-female ratio is already at 0.97 male per female and surely they don’t want to face the problem of too many females.

Solution? Cull the oversexed godless females!

international women's day (aka blog against sexism day)

I would like to think that women today are finally considered free and equal adults. But some people go out of their way to prove me wrong.

South Dakota has banned abortion, effectively ensuring that a bunch of men can control what a woman does with her ova. Several other states are trying to follow suit to build their backward, testosterone-run country. Undoubtedly the work of lobbyists from South Dakotan coathanger corporations.

Human Rights Watch reports that rape victims in Mexico are denied access to legal abortions and subjected to routine humiliation and insult. Of course, that's because women are just asking to be raped, yeah of course.

Even when European women do better in school than men, they will get lower pay and fewer top jobs. Screw school. My A won't beat your C because I have eggs and I might have children, so I'll take my maternity leave, triple the workload of my colleagues and lower productivity.

The UN has actually posted a world classification table of the number of women in parliament. Top on the list? Rwanda. Singapore is at #66 while USA is at #69 and France is at #84. In fact, a grand total of 13 African nations and 6 Middle Eastern countries rank ahead of the US - land of the free! The 6 female heads of state of our time belong to Ireland, Latvia, Finland, Philippines, Liberia and Chile. That's cos we're emotional and thus incapable of rational decision-making. After all, we don't want an actual thinking, feeling person in charge of a nation do we??

When can we live in a world where the mere possession of testicles and a penis cannot justify such disparity?

allez l’OM... on craint dégun~!!

Living in a soccer town is a-mazin'! PSG-OM matches are super high risk. On match days, you do NOT want to be driving a car with Parisian plates or wearing PSG purple and red. Unless you’re itching to get insulted/assaulted/your car wrecked, of course.

This time, Paris had not sold the promised number of tickets to Marseille supporters and furthermore, seated them just beneath the PSG supporters. Outnumbered and vulnerable, the club chairman had refused to send first team regulars to Paris and discouraged supporters from attending the match, fearing that someone would be killed. Riiiight... So instead they sent a side of first team benchwarmers and amateur team (= 5th division) players, because we can’t get the first team regulars killed but hey it’s ok to send sacrificial lambs? Maybe they’ll do the Puss in boots ‘hey look at me I’m so cute and unthreatening’ routine and get away with it?

In any case, this jumble of non-regular first team and 5th div players held the regulars of PSG to a nil-nil DRAW. How about that?!! Even captained by the great Pauleta, PSG fell flat on their faces in front of a bunch of 'minots'!

As you can imagine, Marseille went wild!! The celebrations must have been crazy!! I can see people jumping into le vieux port, flares, horns, smokes, the works! People stormed the train station to welcome their unlikely heroes back, with you guessed it, more flares, horns and smokes!

Aw man, I want to be back to celebrate with them again! J'suis avec vous!!

Moral of the story: Better a small marseillais than a useless parisian.

one flu over the cuckoo's nest

To be added to the list: Niger and Switzerland.

the only thing i do more than cough is pee

I've coughed and sneezed my way through a midterm and 2 papers this week. Imagine trying to write an essay while coughing your lungs out. It's like coughing your brains out. I couldn't string two sentences together without coughing them apart, much less actually formulate a proper thesis on smallpox vaccination or Isaiah Berlin's two concepts of liberty.

So far I've ingested:
4 doses of paracetemol (panadol, efferalgan, doliprane)
20 strepsils
3 mint sweets swiped from the microbiology department
12 tbsp of sea coconut brand cough syrup
8+ bowls of home-brewed herbal chicken soup
6 cups of tea
6 cups of lemon honey water
countless cups of warm water
only noodle soups for the past 4 days already

Ain't that an impressive blend of Western medicine and Chinese old wives' tales?? It certainly explains the title of this post.