Awards

Blog Award By: Blog Directory - Blog Sites

  

Blog Award By: Blog Directory - Blog Sites

 

News Shopping Games Home & Garden
Personal Technology Arts & Crafts Health

Blog Award By: Blog Directory - Blog Sites

News Shopping Games Home & Garden
Personal Technology Arts & Crafts Health

News Shopping Games Home & Garden

Personal Technology Arts & Crafts Health

Developer Disaster - The Aftermath

10 December 2011, after the fence dropped into the drain, work in progress in putting up temporary fencing so that the dogs could run free again!

It took four hands to do the work.

More and more soil broke off and sloped down into the drain.

Only the second day and soil erosion is underway.  From the look of the condition of the soil and cracks below the yellow pillar, this part of the fence is likely to fall down soon.

Luckily no rain from the time of the disastrous incident till now.

Evidence of soil erosion.

Knocking a post into the ground to support and hold the chain-link fencing together.

Laying the large plastic sheet to alleviate the problem of soil erosion in case it rained.

Holding the plastic sheet in place with bricks.

That's the spot where the hippo slipped and lost control and nearly sprained his back.

What is the boy doing in the photo?  Oh, he's playing with the brick.

Work in progress. 

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Personal Technology Arts & Crafts Health

Developer Disaster - the final straw

It's everyone's dream to own a home.  I'm one of those everyone whose dream was to own a house - not a mansion but a house.  So I looked around and saw a sign standing upon an empty land advertising a housing project.  I went to visit the developer.  I remembered it was a nice visit.  As soon as I walked into the sales room, I felt like I was VIP - "Very Important Person".  Tea arrived together with brochures and photos and location plans and I vividly recall sales talk of how solid is the foundation and what tiles will be provided and how strong the car porch will be.  However, as soon as a sale is secured and deposits made, they forgot all about you and refused to entertain complaints from you.  I guess that's how developers work to make a living.  Even within the warranty period, they delayed repairs/fix defects.  They were slow to entertain complaints and refused to fix problems/defects.

I remembered speaking to the neighbours and each had a different story to tell, lamenting on defects and the lack of response to their complaints.  There were so many complaints that I remembered one of the developer's manager resigned because he could not handle so many complaints from purchasers.  Stories  of defects were leaking roofs, leaking bathrooms, bursting water pipes, collapsing water tank, sinking septic tank, pest infested doors and windows, uneven walling, just to name a few.  I faced the same problem like my neighbours with the various defects.  I even got the house without all the water tapes because when the keys were handed over, it was verbally agreed that the contractor will hand over the water tapes at a later date.  Since there was no signed document to state this, I had to buy and install all the water tapes in my house.

"What to do?  We had to engage our own contractor to rectify all the defects else we can't move in."  That was what everybody did so that they can move into a house that's livable.  I suppose in Malaysia we  are more complacent and docile and do not have the habit of fighting and standing up for our rights. So everybody happily or unhappily engage their own contractors to rectify defects and carry out renovations.  However, the story doesn't end there.  Slowly things happen, lines appeared on the walls and walls started to crack...........

............ and one day, ............

On Thursday, 8 December 2011 at around 11:50 pm - a loud boom was heard, then the dogs barked.  This happened - the fence running along the side of the house collapsed.

The whole two-third of the fence together with the monsoon drain collapsed and left hanging in mid-air one of the hollow grille with one side attached to the back fence.

Three flower pots, a bunch of lemon grass and 'misai kuching' went along with the fall. 

That's the end near the back fence.

View from the front.

Close-up view.  Any piling?  The yellow bit is the pillar support for the hollow grille.

All debris into the drain.

Soil erosion taking place.

As can be seen, no piling at all.

That's the right-angle corner at the backlane.  No piling at all.  That's why the monsoon drain walling collapsed taking the whole fence with it.

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News Shopping Games Home & Garden

Personal Technology Arts & Crafts Health

The story of making dumplings

The ingredients for this 'lumpy' thing:  200gm plain flour (shifted); 150ml boiling water; 1 tbsp oil and 1 tbsp cold water (if necessary).  Put the shifted 200gm flour into a mixing bowl or any bowl you can find in the kitchen, make a hole in the center, pour in the 150ml hot boiling water and mix quickly using a wooden spoon.  This part of the process was done by my son who suddenly showed an interest in making dumplings.  After this lump is created, cover the bowl with a cloth and let it rests for 20 minutes.  There's a 20-minute wait for this 'thingy' to rest so everybody dispersed and we all agreed to gather for the kneading of the dough.  You can easily get the plain flour at the DIY Bakery shop - 1kg at RM2.70.  You need to buy more than 200gm because you need extra plain flour for kneading and when you want to divide them into smaller portions.

I prepared the filling which is shown in the bowl on the left side of the photo.  The filling includes 300gm minced pork; a small sweet cabbage (discard the veins, shred the leaves, sprinkle with a pinch of salt and let it rest for maybe 20 minutes, then squeeze out the water from the cabbage); 1 tbsp light soya sauce, some salt, 1 tbsp sesame oil, some pepper, a pinch of sugar, 1 tbsp corn flour.  Mix them all together and put the bowl into the fridge while waiting for the dough to rest.  Did I say everybody dispersed because we wanted to wait for the dough to rest for 20 minutes?  So when my son and I came back for the lumpy dough, I discovered the dough is round and smooth (as shown in the plate on the right side of the photo).  My first thought was, wow, miracle, that lumpy thing can rest and turn into something so smooth.  Then I realised that lumpy thingy was no more in a bowl but on a plate.  I asked who disturbed the lumpy thingy and way back in the kitchen, somebody answered "I kneaded it already".   People can be so 'busybodies'.  The recipe says when kneading the dough, there's a need to add 1 tbsp oil and 1 tbsp water if necessary so that means the busybody did not add this two crucial ingredients.  After kneading into a smooth dough, rest the dough for 10 minutes before using.

Roll the smooth rested dough into a roll (using some plain flour because it's very sticky), then divide them into round portions of 20gm each.  Then roll them into thin rounds.  Remember to sprinkle plain flour everywhere so the dough won't be so sticky.

Once you have the thin rounds, you can spoon the filling into the middle and close the edges.  You can just close the edges or you can fold and close them which will look better as dumplings are more rounded not like curry puffs which look more flat.

200gm plain flour for the skin and 300gm minced pork can make about 30 dumplings.  I smear the plate with olive oil before putting the dumplings on it.

This is the first batch of pan-fried dumplings.  There are three ways of cooking the dumplings.  You can steam them which is the most healthy way of eating them.  You can fry them in hot oil which is the most delicious way of eating them.  You can pan-fry them by heating the cooking pan, pour in some oil (not too much but just enough to brown them), lay the dumplings on the side and once they are browned, pour in enough water to submerge them but do not over-submerge them and cover the cooking pan.  Let it cook and boil.  Once the water is reduced, you can take them out.  They are ready for eating.  What I did was to put that little bit more oil to brown both sides, then before I pour in the water, I pour out the oil first so it's not so oily.

Barbeque

Suckling pig over fire.  I saw this behind the Hap Chen shop.

Pork belly undergoing seasoning.

3-layered pork, chicken wings, fish for barbeque.

Cooked.

Chicken cooked in bamboo

That's chicken cut into pieces with ingredients such as lemon grass, chilli, garlic, onion, ginger, salt, pepper, some sugar.

Chicken and ingredients well mixed.

Put chicken into the bamboo.

Prepare the barbeque pit.

Block the entrance of the bamboo to retain steam and heat.

Turn them once in a while so that all sides are evenly cooked.

Bamboos look charred after cooking but as long as the juice from the food inside do not ooze out, then it's  alright.

Pour out the cooked chicken into a bowl.

Chicken cooked in bamboo!