I'm giving Ben away. For reals this time. The bunny, not my brother. So I put him up on Petfinder. At first I was so guilty about it, I was going to give him away for free. After half a dozen calls asking whether they could pick up the cute bunny immediately, I realised I had missed my target audience: responsible people (quite unlike myself).
After much complaining, I was advised by Mum and the Oracle to place an adoption fee to make sure that not every Tom Dick and Harry would be calling to get their paws on my sensitive little critter, and so I did.
Aside from one message accusing me of being insincere for charging money, it went well in rooting out the fluff. So I had two candidates over for a viewing. First was a cute Indon student and her entourage. She had cared for bunnies before and didn't seem to mind that Ben was antisocial and kind of a prick.
The other was a family whose matriarch had insisted on seeing the bunny. I felt bad, and so agreed to let her come.
DING DONG
Me: *Opens door to see five people standing outside* Er. Come in.
CHECKING OUT CUDDLY BUNNY
Me: So, he's not very friendly (might as well be honest) but he lets you hold him and he doesn't poop everywhere unlike the cripple there.
Woman: OMG SO CUTE *grabs bunny* So can we take him now???
Me: Uh. Okay. You're okay with the adoption fee?
Woman: There's an adoption fee? I thought you were giving it to me for free.
Me: *what the...* Did you not read the ad?
Woman: Ha ha ha. Yes, but I messaged you and said I preferred it without the fees.
Me: *O RLY??* Well, it's a hundred bucks. And he only eats this expensive food.
SHOWS NUMMY BUNNY FOOD
Woman: Would you take fifty for the bunny? Ha ha ha.
Me: Er. No. Coz I don't want people who can't afford to bring him to the doctor in case he has one of his paranoid constipation moments.
Woman: You know, we came so far. All the way from Puchong (WOW.PUCHONG.DAMN FAR WEI), and we picked up the kids from Klang to come all the way here. Don't you feel sorry for us?
Me: *WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING??* Okay...
Woman: We promise to take gooood care of it. And take it to the vet in case of life threatening illnesses.
Me: Let me talk to my mum (because I have no spine).
WITH MUM
Mum: Just tell them no.
Me: But Maaaaaaaaaaa...so kesian.
Mum: Kesian for what? If they can't afford to pay adoption fees how are they going to take care of him?
Me: :(
Mum: Fine. Be a pussy. Ask them for 75 then.
OUTSIDE
Ben (the brother):*whisper* Dude. You can't give Ben to them. I can't believe she keeps asking you to give it to her for free.
Me: Okay Woman. I can give it to you for 75.
Woman: 75? That's so much. You might as well give it to us for 50. Ha ha ha.
Me: No.
Woman: Why don't you give it to us for free? Can't you see we're wonderful people who will love, respect and cherish this soft toy...I mean living creature? I messaged you about not wanting the fees and you replied.
Me: Sorry.
Woman: Okay, we have rm 70. See, I even had to ask my children. Ha ha ha. Don't you feel sorry for us? So I'll give you 70, okay?
Me: Sorry, it's 75.
Woman: It's only 5 bucks.
Me: *Yeah, but I don't like you* No. There's an ATM across the street though.
Woman: Ha ha ha. But we'll have to drive out. It's far! And then we'll have to turn back again. It's too much trouble.
Me: *Kind of speechless* So do you want the bunny or not?
Woman: No.
THEY LEAVE
For some reason I felt insulted. I felt like me and my bunny had been disrespected. I can't say I love Ben with all my heart and will only let the second coming of Mother Teresa adopt him but I surely don't want people who, for some reason I can't explain, don't seem like they care about his wellbeing aside from him looking cute.
I was bitching to my brother about how she had come here with no cash, KNOWING there was an adoption fee, expecting me to give it to her for free. What am I running, a charity for used clothes? Then I realised she was the same woman who had accused me for being insincere and that made me even more upset.
TEN MINUTES LATER
DING DONG
Woman: Okay, we'll give you 65 ringgit and 10 Brunei dollars.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Potato Nommies
Ever since my mother and brother moved in, I have found one benefit. I'm learning how to cook. You know how people like to say, 'Oh it must be nice to have home-cooked food now that your mum's staying with you!'?
NUH-UH.
My response (in my mind la, coz I don't want to embarrass my mum): 'Yes it is nice that I have to teach myself to cook so as to have edible, unburnt food to eat.'
Okay, my mum's food isn't that bad. Just don't compare it to your mum's food. But this situation is rather frustrating because a. the allowance previously used for eating out and frolicking has now gone to household groceries, so I don't actually have a choice to eat out all the time and b. I'm not that great a cook.
When I say not that great, I mean I sometimes forget to put salt in the dishes.
But I have discovered that the food I cook best are the ones that come with recipes. The best meal so far I've had was the Potato Gnocchi (thanks to the Amazing Potatoes). Gnocchi is the easiest thing in the world.
1. Boil however many potatoes you want to turn into gnocchi. Make sure it's the yummy, sweet baking potatoes and not the local midget potatoes that are only acceptable drowned in kari ikan pari.
2. Prepare some flour, egg yolk (one is usually enough unless there's more than, er, 8 people?), salt and pepper.
3. Mash the potatoes.
4. Mix in flour, egg and salt and pepper. About the flour, just mix in however much until the mixture just holds together. It's not cengkodok so you don't have to drown it in flour.
5. Roll it into a long thin sausage and cut about 1.5 inch (I took out a ruler to measure. Actually any size also can, as long as they're uniform so they can cook together) pillows of gnocchi.
6. Boil water. Throw in little gnocchis. Wait for them to rise to the surface and then scoop them out.
TA DA GNOCCHI.
Boiled gnocchi with any sauce is okay, but fried gnocchi is better.
7. Fry chopped up prawns. Fry gnocchi. Serve together.
See. So easy. They can be refridgerated (refrigerated? referigerated? ?????), but don't keep it for more than two days.
Trust me.
NUH-UH.
My response (in my mind la, coz I don't want to embarrass my mum): 'Yes it is nice that I have to teach myself to cook so as to have edible, unburnt food to eat.'
Okay, my mum's food isn't that bad. Just don't compare it to your mum's food. But this situation is rather frustrating because a. the allowance previously used for eating out and frolicking has now gone to household groceries, so I don't actually have a choice to eat out all the time and b. I'm not that great a cook.
When I say not that great, I mean I sometimes forget to put salt in the dishes.
But I have discovered that the food I cook best are the ones that come with recipes. The best meal so far I've had was the Potato Gnocchi (thanks to the Amazing Potatoes). Gnocchi is the easiest thing in the world.
1. Boil however many potatoes you want to turn into gnocchi. Make sure it's the yummy, sweet baking potatoes and not the local midget potatoes that are only acceptable drowned in kari ikan pari.
2. Prepare some flour, egg yolk (one is usually enough unless there's more than, er, 8 people?), salt and pepper.
3. Mash the potatoes.
4. Mix in flour, egg and salt and pepper. About the flour, just mix in however much until the mixture just holds together. It's not cengkodok so you don't have to drown it in flour.
5. Roll it into a long thin sausage and cut about 1.5 inch (I took out a ruler to measure. Actually any size also can, as long as they're uniform so they can cook together) pillows of gnocchi.
6. Boil water. Throw in little gnocchis. Wait for them to rise to the surface and then scoop them out.
TA DA GNOCCHI.
Boiled gnocchi with any sauce is okay, but fried gnocchi is better.
7. Fry chopped up prawns. Fry gnocchi. Serve together.
See. So easy. They can be refridgerated (refrigerated? referigerated? ?????), but don't keep it for more than two days.
Trust me.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Reasons why you should buy a physical book - you can see the cover
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH WTF I thought I downloaded TRUDI CANAVAN ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
And I only realised something was wrong after like page 200.
Oh God.
The Juiciest Chicken Wings
As promised (to myself) I will review a book a week. The book I choose to review today, I actually read like weeks ago. So some details may not be clear and others may be wrong since a. I have a magnificiently bad memory and b. I'm very emotional about books.
So the book has nothing to do with chicken wings, I just feel like eating wings today. But the book IS called The Hunger Games, so maybe food is relevant.
I picked up The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins because I had downloaded Adobe Digital Editions and then got all excited and downloaded a bunch of books, many of which were the Wild Card books of George R R Martin. I mention this because, well, the Wild Card books are very much a guilty pleasure (although the recent ones are actually good and all of it deals with the usual superpowered-people issues - discrimination and lack of acceptance by people who don't want to accidentally have their arms chopped off by the friendly neighbourhood precocious kid).
And so I expected The Hunger Games, which have been generating a huge buzz due from its possible film due to its popularity, to be more or less like that - or even worse, like a sparkly, apocalyptic version of Twilight.
Luckily I was wrong on every count, and after the fifth page I almost cried because it had been so long since I have read a well written book where I do not know the author personally (Ahaha. I'm looking at you Neil. And Greg).
The Hunger Games is set - in North America, I think - in a post-apocalyptic world, where the populace is divided into numbered districts that cater to a specific economic area (eg District 7 does lumber, District 11 is agriculture). They are more or less ruled (or dictatored? tyrannised?opressed?) by the Capitol, who feeds off all of the Districts to fuel the decadent lifestyles of their residents. Just to remind everyone who the big shit is, the Capitol holds the annual Hunger Games, where two child participants from each district (there are 12) are thrown into an 'arena' to fight, scheme or manipulate others until all die except one.
Our protagonist, Katniss, is from District 12, the poorest of all districts. I liked the book because I liked Katniss. She wasn't particularly nice, she was kind of moronic at times, she did what she had to and I felt like she did a minimum amount of whining in comparison to other YA heroines.
So Katniss, through a sad twist of fate, ends up in the Hunger Games with Peeta Mellark, who I am kind of in love with. Because he is just that lovable. At first they are adversaries in teh ring, but due to a twist in the rules that allow two candidates from the same district to win (thanks somewhat to Peeta's brilliant PR manipulation), they end up working together.
Along the way, Katniss does several things that the Capitol percieves as rebellious. And they do not like rebels. They are the Big Shit, and they murder children for fun, so no one is allowed to have a difference of opinion lest they come and destroy your pet goat in the middle of the night. And she eventually realises that she has become something of a rebel symbol because of her knack of doing things in ways that the Capitol would not expect.
The Hunger Games are like the hugest deal each year in the Capitol, so there are a lot of people around to ensure there are no fuckups. Which means everyone should die, and in the most dranatic way if possible. Throughout their stint in the arena, the Tributes have cameras following them constantly. And this is how the people's reaction to Peeta and Katniss is manipulated, to the point that in the end, the Capitol has to rescind its order to allow both tributes from a single district to live - because the dynamic duo have become too dangerous.
Blah blah. I liked the book because it engaged my feelings - I felt for Peeta, and Katniss and even that other guy whose name I can't recall. I didn't cry reading this or any of the other HG books, despite avowals by other readers that only people with hearts of grotty ceramic will not collapse in a storm of tears at this or this page. But I was moved, and I felt an urgency despite knowing that there are 2 other books to this. There were even CONSEQUENCES! I always feel like the book is a sham the moment the characters never have to deal with consequences. I was worried if Peeta and Katniss would survive (preferably Peeta), and I could believe that the HG could be used as a device for the rebellion forces.
The book isn't perfect of course. Katniss, despite being an all around female dick, turns out to have a voice that silences the birds. Fortunately this only comes out once or twice, and maybe I'm just cynical about heroines who have that one great talent that blows everyone out of the water - especially prissy stuff like singing, or painting, or being irresistable to everyone (is that even a talent?). And also, Peeta keeps saying 'You don't understand the effect you have on people,". I'm like WHAT EFFECT?? That of an (understandably) unhappy, disagreeable teenage girl? It's also never explained and gets irritating in the later books. But that's all, I think.
Maybe I am still in shock that this book exceeded my expectations of a regular, cliche I Am Number Four type of novel and even dealt with some pretty gory stuff, but I would totally recommend this book. It was well written, with interesting characters and CONSEQUENCES (yay).
So the book has nothing to do with chicken wings, I just feel like eating wings today. But the book IS called The Hunger Games, so maybe food is relevant.
I picked up The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins because I had downloaded Adobe Digital Editions and then got all excited and downloaded a bunch of books, many of which were the Wild Card books of George R R Martin. I mention this because, well, the Wild Card books are very much a guilty pleasure (although the recent ones are actually good and all of it deals with the usual superpowered-people issues - discrimination and lack of acceptance by people who don't want to accidentally have their arms chopped off by the friendly neighbourhood precocious kid).
And so I expected The Hunger Games, which have been generating a huge buzz due from its possible film due to its popularity, to be more or less like that - or even worse, like a sparkly, apocalyptic version of Twilight.
Luckily I was wrong on every count, and after the fifth page I almost cried because it had been so long since I have read a well written book where I do not know the author personally (Ahaha. I'm looking at you Neil. And Greg).
The Hunger Games is set - in North America, I think - in a post-apocalyptic world, where the populace is divided into numbered districts that cater to a specific economic area (eg District 7 does lumber, District 11 is agriculture). They are more or less ruled (or dictatored? tyrannised?opressed?) by the Capitol, who feeds off all of the Districts to fuel the decadent lifestyles of their residents. Just to remind everyone who the big shit is, the Capitol holds the annual Hunger Games, where two child participants from each district (there are 12) are thrown into an 'arena' to fight, scheme or manipulate others until all die except one.
Our protagonist, Katniss, is from District 12, the poorest of all districts. I liked the book because I liked Katniss. She wasn't particularly nice, she was kind of moronic at times, she did what she had to and I felt like she did a minimum amount of whining in comparison to other YA heroines.
So Katniss, through a sad twist of fate, ends up in the Hunger Games with Peeta Mellark, who I am kind of in love with. Because he is just that lovable. At first they are adversaries in teh ring, but due to a twist in the rules that allow two candidates from the same district to win (thanks somewhat to Peeta's brilliant PR manipulation), they end up working together.
Along the way, Katniss does several things that the Capitol percieves as rebellious. And they do not like rebels. They are the Big Shit, and they murder children for fun, so no one is allowed to have a difference of opinion lest they come and destroy your pet goat in the middle of the night. And she eventually realises that she has become something of a rebel symbol because of her knack of doing things in ways that the Capitol would not expect.
GOATS BEWARE
The Hunger Games are like the hugest deal each year in the Capitol, so there are a lot of people around to ensure there are no fuckups. Which means everyone should die, and in the most dranatic way if possible. Throughout their stint in the arena, the Tributes have cameras following them constantly. And this is how the people's reaction to Peeta and Katniss is manipulated, to the point that in the end, the Capitol has to rescind its order to allow both tributes from a single district to live - because the dynamic duo have become too dangerous.
wtf.
Blah blah. I liked the book because it engaged my feelings - I felt for Peeta, and Katniss and even that other guy whose name I can't recall. I didn't cry reading this or any of the other HG books, despite avowals by other readers that only people with hearts of grotty ceramic will not collapse in a storm of tears at this or this page. But I was moved, and I felt an urgency despite knowing that there are 2 other books to this. There were even CONSEQUENCES! I always feel like the book is a sham the moment the characters never have to deal with consequences. I was worried if Peeta and Katniss would survive (preferably Peeta), and I could believe that the HG could be used as a device for the rebellion forces.
The book isn't perfect of course. Katniss, despite being an all around female dick, turns out to have a voice that silences the birds. Fortunately this only comes out once or twice, and maybe I'm just cynical about heroines who have that one great talent that blows everyone out of the water - especially prissy stuff like singing, or painting, or being irresistable to everyone (is that even a talent?). And also, Peeta keeps saying 'You don't understand the effect you have on people,". I'm like WHAT EFFECT?? That of an (understandably) unhappy, disagreeable teenage girl? It's also never explained and gets irritating in the later books. But that's all, I think.
Maybe I am still in shock that this book exceeded my expectations of a regular, cliche I Am Number Four type of novel and even dealt with some pretty gory stuff, but I would totally recommend this book. It was well written, with interesting characters and CONSEQUENCES (yay).
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