Canchi: Egg Sandwich in a Can

[FUN] Bell 〿 You

2010-09-19T22:48:00.000-04:00

Received this Bell Chinese Flyer a few days ago, looks alright by the first glance.
(Not the newest phone on the market, but not bad for pushing some of the old stuff out the door.)

What caught my eyes were the Promo about Chinese TV combine with the long distance phone call package.
I know that some Canadian still thinks that Chinese words (or characters) are just block letters, and they treat it as symbol or figure.
But this time Bell's Promo used a symbol as if it's a Chinese character, which is like using a heart symbol to represent love.

選看 BELL 電視，不但讓〿得知天下事，更可免費欣賞中文台組合一年！

In this sentence, what they trying to say is that, "Choosing Bell TV, Not only allows 〿 to know everything in the world, can also enjoy free Chinese channel combo for 1 year."

"BELL TV watching the election, not only to 〿 that world affairs, but also enjoy the Chinese Channel combination for one year free!" (using Google Translate)

I can guess that "〿" in the Promo probably means "you".
So in the eyes of Bell, you are "〿". They don't treat you as an account number, just a symbol.

But as I continue to read this funny promo flyer, I discovered another use of the "〿".

將有機會〿得一部最新的 3D 高清電視。

In this sentence, roughly translate it would mean, "Will have the chance 〿 get a newest 3D High-Definition TV"

"Will have the opportunity 〿 get a new 3D high-definition TV" (using Google Translate)

In this case, "〿" means "to receive"? It should have combine with the character "得"(translated as "get") to form the meaning of "to receive" or "to win", depending if you have to enter a contest at the store.

The fun continues as I read the fine prints, which have a few different uses of the symbol "〿".
(ie. the "er" in user, as it shown as "use〿" in "用戶".)

As a Chinese Customer, I just wonder, why there isn't a final draft review by someone able to read Chinese before the mass-production?
Just read it once and you can see that you can't really say "〿" in any way. (At least I don't know how.)

[Play] Photo Display on LCD

2010-08-12T21:44:00.000-04:00

Please have a look at these photos, and please reply and let me know which one looks better on your screen (CRT, LCD, laptop LCD, LED?).

Thank you very much.

The first picture is the original taken with my digital camera Canon Powershot SD1000 (aka Digital IXUS 70 / IXY Digital 10)
For complete Exif info, please visit "http://www.flickr.com/photos/canchi/4886941138/meta/in/photostream" at flickr.com

On my laptop's LCD, the original looks a bit dark on screen.
But when it's on a desktop LCD, it looks ok.

While the edited (2nd photo) shows up better on my Laptop's LCD, it would seems to be too bright and the redness of it seems to be too much. (saturation?)

Well, I'm not good at taking pictures, and the photo certainly can be better after editing, if you can help, please leave me a message.

Once again, Thank you.

[Food][Baking] No Knead Bread My Way

2010-07-23T18:00:00.000-04:00

Original recipe from The New York Times: Recipe: No-Knead Bread Published: November 8, 2006 on The New York Times
recipe ideas and cooking methods reference from FoodNetwork :Michael Smith's No Knead Bread

First attempt.

Ingredients:
All Purpose Flour 3 Cups
Quick Rise Yeast 1/4 teaspoons
Salt 1 & 1/4 teaspoons
Water 1 & 5/8 Cups

Mix all dry ingredients in a big mixing bowl.
Slowly add water into the mix, stir with a chopstick or spoon, until everything turns into a very wet dough.
Cover with plastic wrap, sealing the whole bowl.
Place it somewhere that it won't get disturbed, let the dough sit for 18 hours.
(Get the mix ready at 10pm at night, you can continue to next step at 4pm on the next day.)

After 18 hours, punch or press the dough to release the gas inside.
Scrape the dough that is sticking to the bowl and slide it into a mould of some kind.
If you have a mould for the standard loaf, that would be great. If not, any rectangular mould would do. (like the Pyrex meatloaf baking dish I used in this case.)
Cover it lightly with plastic wrap, let it rise again for approximately 3 hours.

Preheat your oven to 425 Fahrenheit (or 220 Celsius).
Wait until your oven gets up to temperature, remove the plastic wrap on top of the dough, set the dough (which is in the mould) into the middle rack in the oven.
Bake it for 45 minutes.

After 45 minutes remove it from oven.
What I did was let it rest in the mould until it cools to the touch, and then un-mould it and place it on a cooling rack to cool down completely.

This is the link to the photo album at Flickr for the first attempt at No Knead Bread

The bread seems to have a lot of air hole inside.
The crust is pretty hard, like a European style bread, you know, those tasty crusty bread.

My second attempt.

Ingredients are little bit different this time:
All Purpose Flour 3 Cups
Quick Rise Yeast 1/4 teaspoons
Salt 1 teaspoon
Water 1 & 3/8 Cups
Homogenized Milk 1/4 Cups (milk @ 3.25% fat)
(basically just replace some water with milk)

A little different on the methods too.
After the first 18 hours, don't remove the dough from the bowl, just punch-out the air and let it continue to rise in the bowl for 3 hours.
Once it's finished, transfer the dough into the mould, and bake it in a 425 Fahrenheit (or 220 Celsius) oven for 45 minutes.

The crust this time is a bit crunchy and the bread inside doesn't have that much air holes.
May be it's the milk? The crust had a slightly bitter taste, like it's some burnt milk. But it also taste like some roasted malty drink. Hmmm, still room for improvement.

Third time's the charm?

Ingredients were changed again:
All Purpose Flour 3 Cups
Quick Rise Yeast 1/4 teaspoons
Salt 1 teaspoon
Sugar 1/4 teaspoons
Water 1 & 3/8 Cups
Homogenized Milk 1/4 Cups (milk @ 3.25% fat)

Changes in methods as follow:
Dissolve the salt and sugar in half cups of hot water.
Once it's mixed, cool down the mixture with cold water and cold milk, until it's just slightly warm.
Then mix the flour and yeast with the liquid mixture to form the dough.

Allow the dough to rise in the bowl for 18 hours, then release the gas by pressing it, and let it continue to rise for another 2 hours.
Rub butter on the inside of the mould, then lightly dust the mould with flour, covering the inside of the mould.
Transfer the dough into the mould and let it rise for 1 hour.

After 1 hour in the mould, bake the dough in a 425 Fahrenheit (or 220 Celsius) oven for 45 minutes.

The results were Terrific!
Slice the loaf, bake the slice in toaster for 3 minutes, spread some butter on the toast, it tastes like the best store bought sliced bread you ever had.
Perfect!
With added sugar, the bitter burnt milk taste was gone.
And with this method, the bread looks very much like the standard loaf you get at stores.

What should I make next time? May be something to go between the bread. ;)

[Travel] WTF? Ottawa Parking INjustice

2010-06-07T18:18:00.001-04:00

I'm sure it's a f**king sh**ty Monday.

Visiting my sister in Ottawa, traveling all the way from Toronto, enjoying a week of quiet life.

Got up a bit early to move my car out of the driveway onto the street, so my brother-in-law can go to work.
After that me and sister take my niece to school, then we did some shopping.
Got home right around lunch, thinking I should just leave the car on roadside instead of pulling it back on to the driveway, as there are few other car parking on the street.

There is this sh**ty Pontiac Solstice parking one of it's wheel on my sister front lawn. It's not the neighbor's car, and doesn't seems to be for people checking out the house on sale that's down the street.

This street is a "P" shape residential street, and it's not linked to any park or play area directly, so only people who lives here or visiting would be parking on the street.

Thinking it's probably going to leave soon, we decided not to go further and find out who is parking on the grass.

When it's time for us to go pickup my niece at school, I saw a little piece of paper clipped on the windshield wiper.

"Oh SH*T!" I said to myself, and ran over to check it, as expected it's a parking violation ticket.
It said I have parked on the roadside for more than 3 hours.
Ottawa On Street Parking Restrictions details that
Parking Prohibited - Whether Signs Have Been Erected or Not:
In excess of three (3) hours between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.;

so yes, I did park there for more than 3 hours and it's right between 7:00am to 7:00pm.

And I was going to pay for the ticket, until I check out the dashboard on the shi*ty Pontiac in front of my Honda Civic.
I was furious! The Pontiac Solstice parked in front of me for more than 3 hours, didn't receive the same parking ticket!

This is selective justice!

After we pickup my niece, I took my digital camera and take a few pictures of the "sports car" as it's still parking in the same spot!

As I check the front of the car, actually it's TWO wheels on grass.
(and you can probably see that I park on the driveway now.)

I understand that the LAW is fixed and if you did something that violated the LAW, you will be punished.
I'm not trying to get away from my parking ticket, as I know in my heart that I did park on the roadside for more than 3 hours during the 7:00am to 7:00pm period.
The police don't even need to have any proof to show me how did they know I parked there for more than 3 hours.

Yet, I still want to challenge this ticket in court, because I really want to find out why this police officer only issue a parking ticket to me (my car), but not the car that is right in front of me.

If the court of law in Ottawa tell me that driving a Pontiac Solstice can get away with parking tickets, I'm sure the sales of this car would increase like 10 times or more, and everyone would stop buying Honda Civic in Canada from now on.

Honda Canada, I'm sorry, but I'm seriously considering selling my 2009 Honda Civic because of this.

Pontiac, F*ck you. I would rather take the bus and will never purchase or drives a Pontiac for the rest of my life!

To the issuing provincial offences officer ELLACOTT, officer number 2551, I don't know why you did this, but I do wish that you can explain to me why you didn't issue a ticket to the Pontiac Solstice.

City of Ottawa, since when it's a Provincial offences to park on the side of a street? Shouldn't it be a city by-law violation?
A Provincial offences, this will probably increase my auto insurance by 15% or something like that.

OH SH*T.

(This post took me 2 hours to complete, and that Pontiac Solstice just left the front lawn at 6pm!)

[GAME] Super Mario Galaxy 2

2010-05-23T20:00:00.005-04:00

Buy Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Nintendo™ Wii) at Play-Asia.com

The most anticipated game for Wii this Spring, Super Mario Galaxy 2 had been released on May 23, 2010.

I was surprised it didn't have any special opening movie or some game demo showing if you let it idle at the main screen.
(then again, who would wait for that?)

If you didn't press A+B right away, you can try pressing only A or B Button for some special effect on the title.
(click to view full size picture)

Let's watch the video.

Once again, Princess Peach was kidnapped by The Monster.
With the help from the lumas, we landed at Yoshi's doorstep.
A sign in front ask us to go around the back.

Of course Yoshi means the tunnel!
Once you are on the other side, you see a 1UP mushroom inside a cage, go ahead and take it.
After you clear the dark side (grin), take a look at the sign next to the green tunnel.

It's a hint video!
(Normally I wouldn't watch tutorial video, don't think I need it.)
(But if you don't, you will miss the very first infinite 1UP + infinite coins + infinite Star Bits secret!)

To activate the infinite 1UP + Coins + Star Bits, you have to watch the hint video, after you finish, everything (both side) will regenerate including the 1UP mushroom inside the cage!

Each time you clear both side, you will get one 1UP mushroom, 18 coins, and about 52 Star Bits.
(If you always get Star Bits by defeating the monster, with the method in the hint video.)

I have only completed the first 2 part, "Sky Station" and "Yoshi Star".
According to the guide book, there are so many secret and/or hidden items, it will probably take kids a whole summer to play through this game.
(Which is exactly what parents want, 1 game, 1 summer, for around 60 dollars.)

[Restaurant] Ju Izakaya Japanese Restaurant

2010-05-19T22:00:00.003-04:00

Ju Izakaya (japanese style pub) opened back in April, right at the same complex with J-Town, the Toronto North Japanese supermarket.

We start off with 5 different types of skewered chicken, (from top to bottom): Chicken leg meat, Leg meat with Japanese leek, Chicken liver, Chicken gizzard, and Chicken cartilage (soft bone from the breast).
All of them were seasoned with salt, in order to try out the taste of the meat.
The leeks were brunt quite bad, and the Chicken cartilage were also slightly brunt.
It was quite, including me and my friend, there were only 10 customer. That's why the food came real fast, it's nice and hot.

Took this picture with my old cell phone, so it's really fuzzy.
This is called Motsuni, which is a Pork intestine stew. Flavored with miso, the pork intestine along with sweet potato, burdock and Konjac (aka konnyaku) makes a great tasting stew.
We share this bowl, as the order was about 12 - 15 spoon full of ingredient, with a miso soup like broth.

The grilled beef tongue really surprises both of us.
As we were enjoying the flavorful Motsuni, the over-the-edge saltiness of the beef tongue really hits our tongue!
By adding the lemon juice to the tongue, our tongue only pick up the salty lemon taste.
Less salt would be great, as the beef tongue was quite a thick cut, if only it had some beef tongue taste to it.

Of course we are not nearly full with just that.
Second round we start off with a skewered leg meat with sauce (Tare). The Tare version was much better than the Shio version, mainly because of the sweetness of the sauce gives the meat a different flavor, and the sauce keeps the meat juicer than salt (the salt one was juicy too).

Also we tried the Chicken skin skewer and the Chicken meatball.
For the Chicken skin, we decided to have it with salt, as the sauce would probably made the skin soggy.
It was great, skin crispy and not dried out (served HOT of the grill), and the amount of salt was really nice, thumbs up!

Does anyone really eat meatball with salt only?
Chicken meatball with sauce on it was just ok, nothing special, except the price was higher than other skewers.

We started eating the Ochazuke (お茶漬け) without taking any pictures, so "borrow" the picture from Ju's website.
Three different toppings to choose from, Salmon, pickled plum and takowasa (たこわさ, pickled octopus).
My friend had the one with salmon, and I had takowasa.
I didn't try the salmon one, and because I mixed everything together, I can't really taste the takowasa by itself.
But the Ochazuke was really good, the broth really tasty, the rice are softer than you would have in a bowl of rice (probably soaked in alot of broth), the garnish on top (seaweed and arare あられ) was just like what you see on pictures, everything you expect in an Ochazuke.

We were full right after this. (perfect)

TOO BAD they don't have any beer yet! How come an Izakaya doesn't have any beer or sake?!
(I don't see any LLBO license application posted on the door, don't know what's going on.)

Price wise, real Japanese style of food in Toronto, I would say they are at mid-range? But without beer or sake (or a glass of calpis), I don't think I would visit in a few months.

Let's hope they get the license real soon, and apply the profit from the sales of beer & sake to lower the price of food, that would be great!

[Blog] New blog tools update

2010-05-19T02:30:00.001-04:00

Added a few things to the blog.

First of all, the links for the older post are changed to something like this:

so visiter can see which page they are on, and how many pages in total.
since this is a javascript function, if you've those browser add-on to block javascript, you probably won't be able to see it.

Thanks to Blogger Plugins for the "numbered page navigation" code.

Next up are buttons for Twitter、Facebook 及 Google Buzz.

(I expected to see the same thing happen to every post, all links are ZERO.)
Haven't use Twitter for a while now, ever since I switched over to Plurk back in 2008.
I found that alot of people just join Twitter recently, and it would be a good way to promote this blog, so that's why I added it in.

I don't really use Facebook, because I don't play those flash games (not anymore), and I don't really update my personal info there. (If I really have time, probably should update this blog more often.)

But most people I know, they love to use Facebook and they are always on Facebook, that's why I added this button, to better serve the people who loves Facebook.

Google Buzz button, this is just for the sake of adding stuff. People I know don't rarely use Google Buzz, and some don't even have a G-mail account, (sigh) may be I will take it off when Google decided to shut down the Buzz service.

Again, Thanks to Blogger Plugins for Facebook share count button, Twitter retweet button (service provided by tweetmeme), and add Google Buzz button

Also added the Facebook Like Button, which shows up at the bottom of every post. I think it's just the same function as the button at the upper right hand corner of the post.
Just another way for all of the Facebook to use.

You guessed it! This code was from Blogger Plugins, on Facebook like / recommend button

I wanted to add the lightbox (picture viewing function) code into the blog, was reading the code from Blogger Plugins - light box image viewer, but somehow it doesn't quite work with my blog, as the lightbox will show the full size picture, which is way to big to fit on screen.

Then I found The Illuminated Path - Logan's Blog, and they have a code for blogger (blogspot), which they have restricted the lightbox size to 640px when showing the pictures, that's almost perfect...

But I will have to add the line rel="lightbox" to every picture manually, and it only works with pictures that has a direct link (like Picasa). Since my blog mainly uses pictures hosted on Flickr, if I have to made lightbox to show pictures from Flickr, I would be violating Flickr user agreement.

gotta find a better way to do this.
Found the original LightBox code, it include the automatic adjustment to pictures, along with some modification, can actually have lightbox to display a link-back to flickr.
Too bad it doesn't work on blogger (blogspot), tested everyone of it, I can't even see my blog (stuck at loading).

Right now have to settle with the slimbox w/ MooTools, and hope fully one day someone will find a way to get this to work with Blogger (blogspot).
Please click on the picture to view the larger picture.

[Share] F*** My Life

2009-02-14T00:05:00.002-05:00

This website allows user to post a one line comment about their everyday life. well, the worst part of their life.

F*** My Life: Your everyday life stories

It's so sad that it's so funny (yeah, I know I'm twisted), sometime it's just helps you from feeling bad when you see how other people's life can be so F***ed up.

I would suggest people over 18 to visit this website.
Anyone under the age of 18 should check out family channel Canada instead.

My sister's blog

2008-10-21T22:58:00.002-04:00

this is a link to my sister's blog.

bake from scratch

Please visit her blog! Thanks!!!

[Food][Cooking] Fried Chicken with Herb

2008-06-14T16:45:00.001-04:00

This dish is a Taiwanese famous snack, and probably the easiest to re-create. Also it's just fried chicken with herb, western culture should have no problem accepting this to be sell at street vendors.
But you don't see it being sell at your street corners, hack, you almost don't get to see any street vendors these days in Toronto.

Since fried chicken are being sell at a ridiculous price (ie KFC popcorn chicken?), to make it at home you can eat till you drop and it's probably the same price or less. And it's always tastier and fresher to make fried chicken at home, right?

To make this fried chicken, first you have to marinate the small pieces of chicken leg meat overnight. (Well, you can just whip it up at anytime you feel like some fried chicken, but it will be much better in taste if you marinate it for a some time.) marinate the chicken meat with soy sauce, sugar, white pepper, cornstarch, sesame seed oil.

Before you fry the chicken, let it sit for half an hour in room temperature to make sure the meat get to cook more evenly.

For coating the chicken, we use sweet potato flour. The texture of the sweet potato flour is the key to this dish, when the lumps in the flour gets into the hot oil, it will turn into little crunch sticking to the meat. The flour makes a nice crunch on the surface of the meat, and the flour lumps sticking on top, the double crunch makes this dish stays crunchy even cooled. (yeah, right. like it can get a chance to cool down before it got into someone's mouth.)

Mix the sweet potato flour with salt and white pepper. Make sure the chicken gets coated on all sides, then set it aside on another plate to sit for a minute. This will ensure the flour sticks to the meat for good.

This dish should be made with Taiwanese Basil-like herb, since there isn't any available here in Toronto (at least I don't see them in supermarket), you can use Basil or Thai Basil instead. Coat the herb just the same as the chicken.

Heat the oil then turn it down to medium-heat, as the chicken has to well done, a medium-heat is a safe way to make sure the chicken is cooked through and avoid the coating gets burnt.

Fry the chicken for 3 to 5 minutes depend on size, then turn the heat up so that the oil drawn out of the chicken pieces. Also adding the herb to fry with the chicken for a minute, drain the oil and place them on some paper towel to remove any excess oil.

Sprinkle some salt and white pepper on the chicken while they are hot. Add some chili powder for an extra kick.

Chinese version posted at:
http://chichican.blogspot.com/2008/06/fried-chicken-with-herb.html

[Cooking] Beef Stir-fry with Oyster Sauce (Video)

2008-06-04T20:21:00.004-04:00

Food related blog post not limited by words and pictures only.
Now we can have video too~

Wanted to make a "Beef stir-fry with Green Onion". But after missing lunch at work, all I can think of is to have a dish with lots of sauce, so I can mix it with the rice (and eat it mouthful after mouthful~).
Therefore, I made a "Beef stir-fry with Oyster Sauce".

Not alot of Ingredients, but it's better to have them all ready to go before cooking.

Main ingredients: sliced Beef (marinated with Soy sauce, Sesame seed oil, Cornstarch and Sugar), White Onion, Green Onion.

Sauce mixture: Soy sauce, Oyster sauce, Cornstarch and Water.

heat the pan, add sesame seed oil when it's hot.
put in White Onion when the oil is hot.
stir-fry the onion.

Keep on cooking the Onion until it's soft.

Add Beef to the pan, place them evenly on the pan to cook. cook it for a minute.

When the Beef is half cooked, toss it. Then add the sauce mixture.

When the sauce thicken, add Green Onion.

Toss it until the Green Onion are mixed with the sauce.

Ready to plate. Time to eat!

Let's take a closer look.

It's really easy to make, and it's really tasty! Best served with Steamed Rice.

This blog post entry was to test the flickr video in blogger. It would only work perfectly in FireFox or other browser, but in IE? Just like it's name, Internet Exploded!!

man, I hate IE7.

Chinese version posted at:
http://chichican.blogspot.com/2008/06/beef-stir-fry-with-oyster-sauce.html

[Food] Fake McRib (I'm Faking It~)

2008-04-25T23:59:00.001-04:00

Of course I can't stand having something so simple with such a high price tag. (Especially the taste didn't completely satisfy me.)

So I have decided to make my own McRib-like sandwich.
Only a few ingredients: Minced Pork Meat, Chopped Onion, Sliced Pickle, a Bun, and most important of all, THE Barbecue (BBQ) Sauce.

First we mix little salt and pepper into the meat, then we form it into a square patty. (you will see why in just a second)

The meat patty was made into the same size as the sliced bread. Why sliced bread? It's just because I don't want to spent extra on the bun, so I use something that I would have in house everyday. (Also, bun comes in a pack of 8, and I'm just having one sandwich. what am I going to do with the rest?)
I should have make the patty slightly larger than the sliced bread, as the meat will shrink. (As it shrink, the center of the patty will get thicker! It's good to keep the patty thin.)

Look at this! Fried to perfection! (But a little bit too much oil around...)

Well, you can use the oil to fry some Onion. It's all done by using the remaining heat in the pat.

The patty I made was a little thick, to make sure it's cooked inside, and to get rid of some of the oil, we put it into a oven to bake it for 5 minutes.
See the oil on the right side? It's almost 2 teaspoon of oil right there.
Now we are sure the meat is done, and much less oil going into the final product. (Which means this sandwich is much more healthier than you would think, or you would get in one of those fast food chain.)

This is a slice of Cucumber, marinated in a quick brine. (This will turn into the sliced pickle that we need.) It's really east to make!
Slice your Cucumber to the thickness you like, but thinner it is, the quicker it will become pickle.
Sprinkle salt and sugar all over the Cucumber, and put in some Red Wine Vinegar to cover all of it. (You can use just normal vinegar, but I don't have any of it in the house, and I think the Red Wine Vinegar brings in both flavour and colour to the pickle. A nice touch~)
Let it sit for 30 minutes. (You can do this at beginning and take it out of the brine at the time you assemble the sandwich. But it probably don't need that long, if you slice it as thin as the slice in the picture.)

Tony Roma's Hickory Barbecue Sauce.
Got this from Costco, love the taste as it's not really sour, a nice sweet taste with a bit of smokiness is perfect of Ribs!
This is the key flavour (probably the only flavour?) for this McRib-like sandwich.

Now put some BBQ sauce on the meat! Both side!!

See the thickness of the meat? It's real meat! NO fillers!
With the sauce on it, it's just so attractive~

Add some fried Onion on the top. Fried Onion has a slightly sweet taste to it, and it smells great!

Now add some raw Onion, so we can have two different taste of Onion.
The raw Onion gives the sandwich a little bit of a kick, and the sharpness of raw Onion can cut through the sweetness of the BBQ sauce. A nice balance in the sandwich.

But we still need to put more BBQ sauce on the Onions.

As we need the BBQ sauce to make the pickle slices sticks to the whole sandwich.
Using four slice of pickle because I like the sweet and sour taste it brings into the sandwich. (You don't have to add as much.)

Now take a Big bite into it!

With this done, I can really careless about McRib coming back for a limited time or not. I can have this McRib-like sandwich any time I want. Now you can try it at home and...Enjoy~

Chinese version posted at:
http://chichican.blogspot.com/2008/04/fake-mcrib.html

[Food] McDonald's McRib (limited time only)

2008-04-20T23:59:00.001-04:00

McRib.
Something you don't see very often at McDonald's menu, and if you go check it on McDonald's website (Canada), you won't even see anything about it. (well, may be on their nutrition chart?)

A McRib is a piece of meat (minced pork) shaped into a boneless pork rib shape. With onion, pickle, and BBQ sauce to top it off. Different from your everyday sandwich, and in order to fit the meat perfectly inside, McRib uses a sub-like bun rather than the round shape bun.

Haven't seen a McDonald's sandwich using a box for a long time. (well, that just me not having McDonald's from quite some time. Try to live a better / healthier life?)
But it doesn't say it's McRib on the box, guess they are just using a generic box for all these limited time sandwich in order to save some money? Hmm...

Once I open it up, WOW! See all that sauce on the box? isn't that a little too much?
Onions are pushed to one side, and the pickle is in the middle. (actually there is another piece right behind the onions.)
On the top of the bun, it's Semolina, not sesame seed as I have expected.

And you can the sauce also hit the side and the top of the box.

There isn't much "stuff" added to this McRib, just onion and pickles, no lettuce or anything.
Well, a TON of sauce, drowning the meat inside.

I guess they use the same pickle in every other sandwich? I can't really taste the pickle as the BBQ sauce they use here is really sour. And it's really alot of sauce, covers up all the other flavours. (Well, if it can cover up the taste of RAW onion, you can imagine how strong it is.)

Of course I have ordered a Combo and that means a great side of french fries!

Ever since I knew about the McRib is back, I have been dying to try it again. But something came up every time I want to have it for lunch at work.
Finally get a chance to have it two weeks ago on a Saturday afternoon, I guess that's the last day of this "Limited time only" promotion. As I was picking up lunch for my nephews, I saw the big poster of McRib and how it's piece of meat sticking out of the bun. I wasn't hungry at the time, so I didn't get one. (And didn't bring my camera with me, so I didn't take a picture. I thought it would be online at their website or some other place on internet, but I guess I was wrong.)

Later on that day, drove by the same McDonald's again, decided to pick up this McRib as a afternoon snack on my way home.
While I'm lining up in the drive thru, I look up and the big poster was gone! I'm like, "oh crap, they don't serve it anymore?!"
So I ask (thinking if they don't serve it, I will just leave...), and lucky for me, they still have it.

Checked it online, don't seems to see anyone talking about it. And later on I found out the promotion of McRib really ended that Saturday. (at least I don't see it anymore at the local McDonald's and the one near my work place in Mississauga.) (now that McDonald's going to have a new Angus Beef sandwich coming out in April 27th or 29th, I'm sure the McRib is gone again.)

Well, it's quite expensive for a lunch with this little ingredients, it's $6.54 for a combo. I know it's just the same as a BigMac Combo, but BigMac seems to have a lot more going on inside.
I guess since it's a limited time offer, so having it once in a year (in my case it's a few years since the last time I have it) isn't too bad.

It turns out someone made a website for McRib! (actually it's McDonald's made it)
www.mcrib.com
or you can read more about McRib at wikipedia - McRib

If you can read Chinese, you can visit my other blog for the similar entry:
http://chichican.blogspot.com/2008/04/mcrib.html

Make Love, Not War @ Camp Okutta

2007-11-19T23:59:00.000-05:00

Shocking! Just saw this on TV, and it's really shocking!

The Camp Okutta campaign was designed to draw attention to the issue of child soldiers, by bringing the problem home to North America. Camp Okutta was a fictitious summer camp for ‘kids aged 8-12’. Instead of the usual camp activities, children were made to fire AK47s, throw grenades and walk through minefields – activities more commonly associated with the experiences of child soldiers.

when I was watch it on TV, even thought I know it's not real, it still gave me such a shock, because I know there are some place on earth right now, this is really happening.
If you click into the Camp Okutta web site, there is a flash game(?) in there to show you more about this horrible summer camp. Beware of the picutres / video or text inside, if you don't like what you see, leave the site and go to WarChild.ca and see what you can do to help.
I know it's just a campaign by a organization in Canada, but I do believe that everyone in this world should realize this is a problem in our world now, and we should do something to stop this from happening.

[TV] Property Virgins

2007-03-25T18:38:00.001-04:00

I was just watching HDTV on sunday afternoon, came across this show, Property Virgins.

This week's show is like really showing me, how "naive" people are. They expect they can just spent $200,000.00 and get a great house? Hmm... with the market these days, a decent home would cost over $300,000.00 easily. And this guy owns a nice motorcycle, which is of course on debt. Two of them have huge debt, but the guy wouldn't sacrifice anything. I mean, if you want to keep your lovely bike, you just have to realize that you can't really get a huge house!

After showing them two beautiful house, which in my mind, I would have bought it and flip it, but that's another show. You know what the guy likes to complain? The house has finished basement. OH MY GOSH! Simply to finish a basement would cost over $30,000.00. The other problem he has with the house is that some of the space is over the garage! If you don't want any space over the garage, then I can tell you for sure that you wouldn't have any really usable space in the $200,000.00 house.

Of course, in the end they found a really nice house for just $265,000.00. I would say that's a bargain in today's market. Don't really know how fast east this place is in the city, it could be even out of the city! But again, $265,000.00?! This is very good. May be I should switch house again, with three extra bed room, four if count in the one my sister would use whenever she is in town. But again, that would be a topic for another show...

[Blog] Spring Update

2007-03-25T18:00:00.000-04:00

Spring time is here~
Spring, Quote from Wikipedia

Springtime is seen as a time of growth, renewal, of new life (both plant and animal) being born, and of the cycle of life once again starting.

As being said, it's really time for me to update this blog. Afterall, I haven't updated it ever since I got my Wii. And I just focus on my chinese blog, I have completely forgot about this blog.

I should start to write something specially for this english blog. But what should I write? I have no idea. Oh well, may be I should start with saying thanks to Ramani's Post on 3-column templates for Blogger Beta

Updated this blog's template and made it into a 3 column style blog. Kinda first step to have new life?

[NOTE] Hi~ Do You Speak Chinese?

2006-12-12T10:08:00.000-05:00

Since the purchase of Wii, (yes, I got one, and I'll post the details later~) I found that I'm too lazy (I know, I'm always lazy) to update this blog. I can't tell how many people are actually reading this blog. That single person who subscribed to this blog was myself, I use it to display a link on my other website. And I guess only a few people I know actually knows about this blog, and it seems to be quite hard for me to find any interesting blog in english for me to link to this place. So I guess the future of this blog is not too well, but I won't "kill" it, I do want to improve my english writing skills. (I know I need to improve on the whole english skill thing.)
Anyway, if you speak Chinese, or you can read Chinese, please leave me a note. And / or if you are interested in viewing my Chinese blog, leave me a note. (Probably you have already found out my Chinese blog, and you just haven't leave me a comment on any of the post I had over there.)
I will continue to update this blog, but with Wii, and possibly a NDSL coming soon, I don't think I will have much time to update even one blog. Please don't expect me to update this blog too often. I'm just trying to translate the same post that is already existed in my Chinese blog, and may be create a few English only blog-post. Hopefully it will keep this blog going.
Even just a little word "read" in the comment would be nice, at least that will give me an idea that someone actually read this blog and not just someone that "clicks-in, and clicks-out". Thanks~

P.S.
- Anyone getting a Wii? My Wii # 4079 0967 8396 1955. Please add me~
- Still a few more chance for getting a Wii before X'mas.
- Would you like to play? Yes, Wii would like to play~

[Shopaholic] Coloured Eye Glasses

2006-12-07T10:37:00.000-05:00

Grey, with White trim on the back side of the frame and ear piece.

All Black.

Brown.

What do you think? Which one you think is the best?

Brand: ProDesign (Denmark)
Style: #4611

P.S.
- Korean BBQ and Stone bowl rice (dolsot bibimbap) for lunch, and Chinese Hotpot for dinner?!
- No wonder high fever strikes on sunday night.
- Wii on sale again tomorrow! Line up at 4am?!

[FOOD] Raw Milk. Dangerous?!

2006-11-30T23:47:00.000-05:00

Well, since when did we stop to consume "Raw Milk"? As far as I know, when I was young, all Milk are the same, they are all fresh from the milk cow. Of course some of them did went through some kind of manufacturing process. But the most attractive selling point was "FRESH", bottled the same day, actually the morning before it arrived at your door step.
Now, every brand is saying how "clean" they are, how many cleaning or special sanitizing procedure the milk went through. The milk you can from grocery store are all been treated, most of them were being heated to at least 60^o Celsius and some keep at the "cooking" temperature for as long as 30 minutes. So the Milk is really "Clean" now, but it would taste like water (no flavour), and with a weird taste to it. Some would say that's a burnt taste cause by the "cooking" of the Milk.

That's just what I think, you can read the links here and see for yourself.

Got Milk? Make Sure It's Pasteurized - FDA magazine 2004
A Campaign for Real Milk
Raw Milk in Wikipedia
Pasteurization in Wikipedia
The Real Reasons Why Raw Milk is Becoming More Popular
Why Raw Milk Should Be Avoided
Finally! Raw Milk Information You Can Trust!
Organic Pastures

I don't know the whole truth behind this Milk business, I try to drink as little milk as possible, unless I'm sure about this "RAW MILK". But as I heard from someone before, which I found so true:
"Cow's Milk are suppose to be drink by young calves. It's not for human to consume it!"

P.S.
- XXX's Milk should be consumed by young XXX, not for YYY (at any age) to consume it! YYY should go drink milk from the "milk-able" species in YYY's group. If the whole YYY species doesn't produce any milk, then milk isn't a choice for YYY.
- Yup, you guessed it, YYY can be Human.
- Wii doesn't have normal DVD function, so it can't play DVD movies. I just realized that could be another "safety" feature to protect Wii from any illegal copies. Hmm...
- PS3 uses Blu-ray Disc. I just read the flyers today and found out that a LG Blu-ray Disc burner is selling for just $749.99. So the day of safely copying your legal copy isn't too far away. Hmm...
- Fujifilm Natura Black F1.9
- Is anyone going to Japan any time soon?!
- Taiwan works too.
- Konica Wai Wai, it's so hard to find.
- Camera is much harder to find than a Wii or PS3.

[GAME] Wii review - part 1

2006-11-29T10:20:00.000-05:00

Must Get Wii...

The First game Wii reviewed is the bundled with console game - Wii Sport.

In Wii Sports, there are total of 5 games: Tennis, Bowling, Boxing, Golf and Baseball. We will start with Tennis. In the game of Tennis, Wii will use the Wii-Remote as the game controller.

Wii-Remote. Some call it the "Wiimote".

To use the Wiimote in Tennis is very simple, just hold the Wiimote as you would hold a Tennis racquet. Holding the Wiimote and move it upward as you would throw the ball up into air (of course you have to be the server!), and make the motion of hitting the ball using the Wiimote to serve. After that, play the game as if you are really holding a real racquet, but you don't need to run, the character in the game will do the running by itself. (or you can control it somehow? we haven't tested that.)
At the beginning, no one really knows how to serve, run, hit the ball and kept it within the court. (We usually ends the game within a few hits of the ball.) But as soon as we finished a few games, some of us actually served an ACE, and some does a few powerful end-to-end strokes.

After Tennis, we move on to another game - Bowling.

Since the console only comes with one set of controller, and as of this post the Wiimote is still in shortage, We only have 2 Wiimote at the time of this review. Unlike Tennis, in Bowling you can take turns in playing, so we can have 4 player with just 2 Wiimote.
Recently, rumors and/or unconfirmed videos are out there on many website saying while playing the Wii Bowling, the string connecting the hand strap and Wiimote would break. And it would slip off the player's hand, causing the Wiimote flying toward the TV unit and breaking the TV screen.
In most cases the victim is the LCD/Plasma TV, and the "killer" are some young child. During our review, we reminded ourselves over and over, and we secured the hand strap before we start the game, making sure we won't make the Wiimote a flying rocket targeting the TV.
After a few games of Wii Bowling, and carefully watching few others playing the game, I have come to a conclusion (my personal opinion): While it's not impossible for the string between Wiimote and the hand strap to break, but for wear and tear, it wouldn't happen in just a few days after the system was sold. The breaking point of the string shown in some website are simply not reasonable. I don't have any scientific test to prove or disprove anything, but I have never witness any incident of Wiimote slipping out of anyone's hand during game play. I don't think Wiimote has any problem under normal use.

Anyway~ back to our topic, Wii Bowling. After selecting players, game start without the need of choosing your bowling ball. (May be there is an option to select ball weight? We didn't check that.) Using the directional key, you can move the character sideways. Press A button, and you can change the angle the character is facing the bowling alley. After that, all you have to do is to make the motion of rolling the ball while holding on to the Wiimote and pressing the B button. Release the B button as if you would release the ball, and Wii will take care of the rest.
This is where most people would (I suspect) release the whole Wiimote and "killing" the TV. But according to our test, most people actually forgot to release the B button, (and held on to the Wiimote really tight!) which Wii will stop and let you try again. After a few strikes and splits, scoring 132 or 142?
Anyway, if you happen to getting the ball onto other people's alley, you will lose your turn. (How to do it? Move your character to the most left/right, then turn your character 45^o to the left/right, and release the ball.) What's the fun/benefit of doing that? I don't know, but sure it's funny when we does that. (Everyone laughed!) Oh yeah, you can also throw the ball backward, it will shock all the NPC sitting behind the player~ Hahaha~

(To Be Continue~)

P.S.
- December 8th, Bestbuy will have another shipment.
- Across Canada, retailers are receiving new shipment mid-week every week till X'mas.
- The sales of LCD/Plasma will rise for sure.
- Took me 3 hours to wrote this.

[Blog] Direction - Redirecting East to West

2006-11-28T13:43:00.001-05:00

Suddenly this idea appears in my mind. Don't know if anyone would actually be interested in reading it. But anyway, Here goes:

This blog will try it's best to report anything from the east side of this world. Of course it will stay with in the four most important things in life: eat, drink, play and having fun!
Currently in works are Asian Movie preview/review/discussion (p/r/d below), Japanese Anime p/r/d, Asian Music p/r/d, Asian Food (snack/meal/related news) report/recipe, Asian Game (G rated/Hentai?!) news/report/p/r/d, and many many more~
Hopefully it will be your #1 blog for sources about any of the Asian related material mentioned above (or some not mentioned too~).

With that being said, I guess I should start on working on collecting, watching, and writing anything asian. (am I just giving myself some more excuse to buy more HD, DVDs, Wii, PS3...???)

P.S.
- 3rd post of the day.
- I should get myself a new desk~
- cleaning up the old isn't a bad idea. Orz

[Blog] Wizard? Blog Setup for Dummies?

2006-11-28T13:03:00.001-05:00

Oh well, as anyone can see, I did the switch now. (Although it doesn't have much changes on the whole blog yet.) Anyway, the changes should come in soon, because I really can't stand the way this blog looks right now.

WHAT? There isn't a step-by-step wizard to setup the template of this blog?!

This problem exists when I was starting the "Testing Ground", but I guess I was blinded by the things happened at work or just that I totally forgot(?!). First of all, the list of template was not enough! or the idea of having only a few ~~ugly~~ not so pretty template was to encourage you to change it and make your own template?! I don't know, don't ask me.

I guess if I take anyone of these "template" from the list and delete all the settings there and put in my set of codes, it should be count as copying the original or altering the original work? Right? OK...I know you would say don't ask you.

oh well.

P.S.
- need some positive energy.
- may be I should go away.

[Blog] To Switch or Not To Switch?

2006-11-28T10:16:00.000-05:00

Should I switch over to the Blogger Beta now? or I should wait until they force us to do so? (Are they going to force us to switch?)

That's just about the whole blog, switching to the new (and improved?) Blogger system. But I guess I should really decide on what I should do with this space, as currently the reading rate is still very low and the reply rate is next to zero.

On the chinese website I did before, I faced the same problem. I just don't know how to get more people to come to read my stuff, or even just to visit and get the page hit number goes up. I know it has everything to do with the content, but how can they judge if it's good (or bad...) content if they don't even come here to read it? (or view it...whatever.)

Anyway, just fed up at work, that's all.

Oh, to the people (or person) that is subscribed to this blog, please take the link of your RSS feed program. Because once I did the switch, Blogger will repost all post here and will probably flush your RSS feed list. (It probably won't affect anyone anyway, I guess people just comes by and read it once in a while.)

P.S.
- fed up at work, cuz some "temp" here is just being rude/dumb/stupid/crazy/ignorant.
- I guess I should update the template.
- using IE7 now, and this page won't show up right...
- FF2.0 seems better, but the IE poison is so deep in my vein...
- how's the censorship here in blogger? none what-so-ever? anyone knows?

[Cooking] Kimchi Chinese Chives Pork Liver Stir-fry + XO Sauce Bean Shoots

2006-11-11T16:02:00.000-05:00

Wednesday night, no one at home again!? Oh well, gotta cook my own dinner again, but last night dinner already used up everything in the fridge. Fine, a trip to the supermarket then, after all I have decided what to cook tonight when I was at work. A quick stop to the nearest SM and I'm all set.

Watched a Japanese tv show long time ago, in the show they showed a dish that is full of vitamin B, which can help to boost up your stamina/vigorousness?? Anyway, it sounds perfect for me, because I'm always tired.

Kimchi Chinese Chives Pork Liver Stir-fry

Ingredients:
Kimchi (one bowl, actually it's I have left with.)
Chinese Chives (cut into about 1 inch in length.)
Pork Liver (use about half of it should be enough, but I don't know what should I do with the rest, so I used all of it. oh, don't slice it too thin, 1cm should be good.)
Pork meat (wanted to get some belly meat, but the pre-sliced ones are all gone, only the big block is there. So I ended up using the ones for Hotpot.)
Korean Hot Sauce, Sesame Oil and some Szechwan Peppercorn.

1. Heat the Oil in the pan, add Liver and Meat in it.
2. once the color of the liver changes, add Chinese Chives and Kimchi.
3. Crush the Peppercorn and add a little is enough, it's to get rid of the smell of the liver.
4. add the Hot sauce in, but it's quite sweet and very easy to burn, so mix it with little water before adding it in.
5. once the sauce thickens, serve it up~ (Liver can't cook for too long, remember that.)

A dish full of meat and intestine, gotta have some vegetable, add some "fiber", or else...

XO Sauce Bean Shoots

Ingredients:
Bean Shoots (not those Bean sprouts, it's green.)
XO Sauce (LKK Brand. quite expensive, and I could have cook it myself, the ingredients ain't all that special anyway.)

1. Add 1 Tbsp of the Sauce (with the oil) into the pan and heat it up.
2. rinse the Bean shoots, and add it in.
3. stir-fry it a while, add some water and cover it to cook for a minute.

That's it~ if you don't really want to fry it, you can cook the bean shoots in boiling water and then mix in the sauce before you serve.

Cooking for one person is not easy. If you make one dish, it seems not enough. But if you cook two dish, there will be left overs. Gotta think of a way to change this.

P.S. - Spent whole day at work reading comics.
- I know DN released long time ago, I know I'm not "IN"
- I wish I have one.
- PIII 733 @ 133Mhz is pretty good, it should able to run W2K.
- 128Mb of RAM sucks. but for NT4 should be quite good already, right?
- C72606

[Cooking] Kimchi Chinese Chives Sliced Lamb Stir-fry + Shrimp Omelette

2006-11-09T22:32:00.000-05:00

No one at home on Tuesday night, guess I'll have to cook my own dinner then.
Found some Kimchi, some Chinese chives. Defrost some sliced lamb meat from the pack ready for hotpot, dig up some sauces, and so, a dish is decided.

Kimchi Chinese Chives Sliced Lamb Stir-fry

Ingredients:
Kimchi (approx. 1 bowl)
Chinese Chives (cut into about 1 inch in length)
Sliced Lamb (since it's already sliced to use in hotpot, just defrost it and set it aside)
Green Onion (can be cut similar as the Chinese Chives, or chopped into fine pieces)
Korean style hot sauce (depending on the sweetness of the sauce, approx 1 tbsp)
and some Oil (Sesame seed oil or Vegetable oil)

1. Add some oil into the pan. once the oil is heated, add the Sliced Lamb.
2. Cook until the meat fully changes colour. (Brown or No more red is seen on the surface of the meat) Add the Chinese Chives.
3. Add Kimchi, Green Onion and the hot sauce into the pan. (If the hot sauce is too sweet, add some chili powder and soy sauce to adjust the flavour)
(Add a little bit of water to the pan if it's starts to sticks to the bottom, but don't add too much or else it will become a stew.)
4. Mix everything together, it's done when everything is well heated.

Done! This should be enough for one person. (or more than enough?!) But since I'm cooking anyway, and I found that 1 dish only is "just too bland". So I decided to cook another dish, with the de-shelled de-veined shrimp and egg.

Shrimp Omelette?

Ingredients:
Shrimp (approx. 15 pieces, shell removed and deveined)
Eggs (5 should do it, less if the eggs are big)
Japanese soup base (or was it really flavoured soy sauce?) that is flavoured with bonito flakes (or some simple soy sauce would do)
Shallot (a little is enough)

1. Heat some Sesame oil, and put the shallot and stir-fry them for a while.
2. Shrimp goes in.
3. Eggs, Beat them up! Add some soup base(??) and mix well. Add them into the pan when the Shrimp changes colour. (Let the eggs starts to set and make sure they coat the Shrimp.)

All Done!

The reason why I wrote this post, was because if someday I have to be the "cook" of the house, I would have some kind of reference. If I don't write these down, I'll probably forget about them the next day or so.

P.S. - Took me more than 2 hours to write this.
- Haven't updated for quite some time.
- Wii are good, PS3 is just too expensive.
- should just sleep more.
- anyone still uses Windows NT 4.0?
- C72506.