I went to Oriole Cafe for Sunday brunch today.

The coffee is rather famous, so I opted for regular coffee (rather than my usual decaf). I had a vanilla latte ($6), and it came with such beautiful latte art. The latte is smooth, even with low-fat milk. It tastes way better than Starbucks. Maybe it’s because I had it warm; the cold Starbucks vanilla latte now tastes like swill in comparison.

For my brunch, I had the Ali Baba, which is Turkish-inspired. A herbed lamb patty with flat bread, halloumi cheese, a bean dip and a side salad. The lamb is flavourful and juicy, I really enjoyed it. The Halloumi cheese is a little too salty, but goes well with the bread. I will not hesitate to reorder this.

My friend KL had the classic Eggs Benedict. The poached egg is dully runny, which is good. At least for those who love runny egg yolks.

Oriole Cafe has a nice relaxing ambience, great for Sunday brunches and lazy afternoon tea.

Do check out their website at http://www.oriolecoffee.com/

Oriole Coffee & Bar
96 Somerset road
Pan Pacific services suites, #01-01
Tel No.: 6238 8348

Anyway, I recently discovered I have a certain preference for what I call the Rehabilitated Genius. For the past couple of years, my favourite TV pairing comes from Bones, namely the characters of Temperance Brennan and Seeley Booth. Temperance is a highly intelligent and rational forensic anthropologist, the best in her field. She is, as most geniuses seem to be on TV, awkward with people, mildly autistic. Seeley Booth is the hunky FBI agent who is all about gut feeling and emotions. It took more that 5 TV seasons for Temperance to be slowly rehabilitated into a loving creature capable of falling in love. Seeing them together just makes me feel so happy.

Then recently there’s Sherlock and Irene Adler. Boy. I fell so deep in this. Actually, I can’t decide if I like Sherlock/Adler or Sherlock/John more. Yes, slash is always fun, don’t judge me. In both cases they unsettle Sherlock and joust him from his comfort zone up in his genius tower. Irene, The Woman he can’t read (well, not really but you get what I mean). The Woman who pushes his buttons and makes him feel, for once. John, the ever loyal companion who is Sherlock’s only friend. Things like that. I dig things like that.

And just to mindfuck around – perhaps I like the Rehabilitated Geniuses because they remind me of myself. And by the last sentence I mean I think am the genius. But that also must mean I am looking to be rehabilitated, which is not true. But by dismissing that sort of possibility, any standards I set up must be intentionally high to avoid a situation of rehabilitation. This avoidance must then relate to a certain emotional flaw of some kind and fear of some degree. But emotional flaws are evident is many (TV) geniuses. And thus I am a genius.

:) Do you feel like shooting me yet?

It’s not like I like to be undecided about things. As much as I want to profess and label myself, I always halt in face of expectations. I don’t like to be expected to have expertise. Today I was asked to fill in my hobbies on a form. I paused – what do I write? If I wrote I like music, will people expect me to play an instrument? If I wrote I like to run, will people expect me to do a 7-minute mile?

This is why I hate labels, apart from the usual discrimination categorizing pigeon-holing yadda. I simply hate not having expert knowledge because our society seems to favour that more, rather than the idea of a Renaissance individual with a finger in every pie. Or at least I perceive our society as favouring that more.

There are labels I will put on myself and wholeheartedly endorse. I know I am pro-choice. I know I am a reader (I believe sheer volumes make up for lack of depth). I know I am …

Dang. That’s all I can muster.

This autobiography lends a sneak peek into Winterson’s childhood and psyche. Through her lyrical prose she recollects the specific incidents in her past that befuddled her, killed her, and rebirthed her. Even though these incidents are piteous, she does not intentionally inspire pity. She narrates from a distance, rationalizing and yet at the same time, she does not shy away from exposing her sore spots. She is wise enough to know of her longing, her desire to belong, and how she may have spent her life and may still be in search of that. She is not overtly making a point in this autobiography – she doesn’t pretend to be a triumphant survivor or a pitiful orphan; she is just being who she is and telling her story to those who care to read about it. Brilliant read this.



View all my reviews

Set in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1960s, the tale is told through the perspective of 3 people- Aibileen, Minny and Skeeter. Aibileen and Minny are black domestic helps to rich white women, while Skeeter is an unmarried white woman living with her mother. Skeeter witnesses the horrid racism and abuse that goes on in their town, and decides to write a book to expose that. How does a rich white woman in the deep South write a book about civil rights when she still uses a different bathroom as the help? With the assistance of Aibileen and Minny and eleven other helpers, Skeeter launches into a literary civil rights movement and thereby shaking up lives in peaceful Jackson.

This book is an absolute page-turner despite being more than 500 pages long. The reference to real events leading up to the civil rights movement lends a certain Forrest Gump charm to this tale.



View all my reviews

Based on my Nike+GPS running app, I have ran 19.12 km so far in 2012.

Let me start off, as usual, by reviewing my New Year’s Resolutions:

1. Complete my MA thesis.
2. Get a job.
3. Photoshoot more – shoot something once a week.

No. 1 is technically fulfilled – I just need to get my thesis signed off and get over the administrative boo boos. No.2, fulfilled. As for No.3, my adult ADD has once again thwarted my efforts. When I started my project it was more along the lines of using my dSLR for photoshoots. But as they say, the best camera is the one you’re holding all the time. So I do indulge in some iPhone photography and wizardry with apps like Instagram. I won’t consider No. 3 fulfilled, but I haven’t been that all stagnant I suppose.

I gather it’s not too bad to complete 2 out of 3 of 2011′s NYR. Now, let me set some for 2012:

1. Read 100 books.
2. For every kilometer I run, I get to set aside $5 to buy whatever I want.
3. Be amazed.

For (1), it is an achievable aim. Even though I read 152 books this year, I think it’s still better to be conservative and keep it at an average of 2 per week. For (2), it’s more of an encouragement to for me exercise more; a reward system ought to work I guess! (3) is a plain ripping off the movie New Year’s Eve, from the NYR list of the character played by Michelle Pfeiffer. I aim to be truly amazed – by something, someone, someplace, some moment. I seem to think it’s not an entirely passive resolution; it demands I keep an open mind and be receptive to things lest I miss the moment. This, I assume, is good for my mental wellbeing. Perhaps it’s something everyone should practise (if they are not already).

So with that note, Happy New Year everyone and may 2012 bring you more joy than you can handle (in a good way).

Logos Hope is a volunteer-run missionary bring-books-around-the-world gig on a cruise ship. They are docked at the Vivocity Promenade from 17-29 December, admittance is free.

Logos Hope is touted as the “largest floating book fair in the world”. So naturally we expected something big. Unfortunately it was not as big as we expected. It’s the size of a small bookstore, if you get what I mean.

This missionary startedi n the 1970s, on a different ship. There is a history gallery onboard before you enter the main book fair area. Throughout the ship are Christian-related exhibits such as a modern redux of the parable of The Prodigal Son.

The books are tagged in units for convenience because they visit some many countries. The exchange rate will be different at each country, and the books are relatively cheap. Novels go for 100-250 units, which translates to S$4 to s$10. Afforable by local standards. This is part of their mission – to bring affordable reading material to underprivileged countries (in our case, more as novelty).

Needless to say, the crowd was daunting. There was hardly space to browse. The reading material are all positive wholesome stuff, if you get what I mean. The fiction books are all clean; no sex, booze, drugs, profanities, violence, etc. All the good stuff, really. There was a large collection of the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye, and Amish romance fiction. Very interesting as these aren’t usually spotlighted in local bookstores or libraries. Yes, our libraries carry these book but it’s the first time I see some many of them congregated.

It was a fun trip going there; getting up and down a cruise ship, walking about marveling and Christian reading material and trying not to laugh out loud. Is it worth going? Not in my books; if you happen to be at Vivocity and if the line is short, maybe you can take a twirl and score some cheap cookbooks and dictionaries.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

After reading this book, I understand why it’s almost permanently on hold at the library. This novel is written in letters told from Charlie’s point of view of his one year in high school. It’s more than just a coming-of-age story; it is about friendship, kinship, and the self. Charlie watches relationship form and break down, people hurt themselves, people hurting other people. He has an incredible sense of self-awareness, but not the social maturity to go with it. As such he mucks about his freshmen year experimenting and attempting to participate but more often than not, he is still viewing all these events unfolding from the outside. Charlie’s experience and thoughts forced me to face a lot of the issues I have, which is unnerving. Books which make me dig deep into my own life in this manner deserves the full 5 stars.

View all my reviews

Taken from http://snarkerati.com

Coming-of-age road-trip movies are always fun to watch, especially when it involves dork boys trying to become men (think American Pie) . In The Inbetweeners,  the 4 main characters Will, Simon, Jay, and Neil spend two weeks in Malia, Crete after their A Levels. Their trip was not without hiccups – plane delays, paltry accommodation (the landlord fished a dead dog out of the well), being duped into a dead club where they were the only patrons, being ostracized by the hip crowd … and as with all coming of age movie they all learn and gain something at the end of the movie. In this case, each gained a girlfriend and learned something new.

The Inbetweeners is an award-winning British TV sitcom that got turned in to a movie this year. The motley crew of characters and gnarly non-RP British accent makes this an interesting movie different from the overdone American ones. The plot and issues remain the same – guys trying to get laid, guys acting stupid and guys being stupid. This movie is rated M18 for nudity and general crudeness. The narration is done by Will’s character (the nerdy one with glasses). The humour is just so right up my alley it cracked me up. But I guess this movie has humour that suits every palate – the wedgie-someone sort of humour as well as the pun sort of humour. It’s a great holiday laugh-out-loud movie.

By the way, Wikipedia gives a very detailed blow-by-blow description of the movie if you are interested in that sort of things.

Watch the trailer here: