Woke up to a gush of water falling from the sky. Sounded like a waterfall for an instant and it’s still drizzling now. Gosh, it’s like nearly the end of 2005 already.

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Wanted to write reviews on Picasa and Flickr (which incidentally, belong to rivals Google and Yahoo respectively), but was getting too technically detailed and I don’t have that much time in the mornings to squeeze out every last word I want to write. If you have a vast photo collection you’d like to edit, store and share, these two pieces of software (Flickr is a web based service, but it’s still software) will make your life much easier. Picasa is an application that allows to archive your pictures and give you very quick access to them. There are also some basic photo editing functions to spruce up your pictures. Flickr allows you to upload these pictures to a central location so you can share them around, add quick comments and even get feedback. Good idea for family albums and if you live in the US and got a pro account, heh, people can even download the pictures or have them printed onto paper!

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More coffee.

This is plunger (press pot?) coffee, with less zing to it as there is more H20 in the concoction. It’s less a hassle than espresso but more a hassle than instant coffee. Water needs to be slightly below boiling before you pour it in. I usually heat up the pot before I chuck in the coffee grounds. Add water to a certain level, take a wooden spoon (chopstick for me) and stir through the liquid to extract the maximum flavour. Leave it to permeate for 3 minutes. Press down and pour out contents. I drink it with slightly heated milk, sometimes with sugar, sometimes not.

A precursor to starting the day. Heh, sort of becoming a coffee alchemist now and seeing whether I can turn those fine grounded beans into liquid gold. Not an obsession yet, but no harm having good coffee in the morning. Still failing miserably on occasion, but it is a learning experience.

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Want to spend the weekend tinkering with some AJAX code I discovered. There’s been a lot of buzzwords flying around, including Web 2.0 and all that new spiffy stuff. If you like snazzy interfaces, play around with script.aculo.us.

Heh, hope the day goes by real quick today.

The term espresso means “a coffee made expressly for you”.

Been playing around with my coffee machine a lot of late, trying to coax it into making something absolutely delightful to drink (coffee is still an acquired taste). Making coffee is a methodical process that one starts to pick up. Like they say, it’s a little science, a little art. Read this article on Coffeegeek at work and just wanted to rush home to make a shot myself.

Heh, heated the portafilter in the group holder while I took a shower. Commercial coffee shops leave their machines on overnight to keep the machine warm enough to brew consistent coffee in the morning. I want to keep my machine a little longer and also save a little on my electricity bill, so that’s not an option. Heh.

Removed the portafilter from my machine and you could feel it has nicely warmed up. Cleared some of the older grind from my grinder, and filled the single shot basket to the brim. Used my finger to smoothen the surface of the coffee before using the in built tamp (I should get a proper one that’s solid to the feel and not plastic) to press down the coffee grinds. A little twist, a knock and one more press before I put the portafilter back in to make the shot.

I switch on the machine and wait for the liquid gold to come out. Using a Jamaican dark roast at the moment (have some Colombian dark roast that I’m yet to try) and you start counting the seconds when the liquid slowly oozes out. 20 odd seconds later and I have a nice cup of espresso (by my standards anyway). Took that shot (no pun intended) above with my 50mm at 1.8F (a little too big on the aperture stop, not enough detail).

It tastes like coffee.

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Spoke to my mom on the phone the other day. Sometimes think it’s a little lonely back home, with my brothers being busy with their daily activities. My relatives are also around for my cousin’s graduation, so it’s kind of quiet back home these days. Reminisce the times when it’d always be rowdy back home because everyone was around. I still recall my younger cousins always trying to make space for themselves at home, complaining if the sibling is watching the TV or listening to their favourite singer too loudly. They’d always say they’d want to move out next time so they don’t have to cram with each other. Heh, even with all the complaining, these siblings miss each other’s rowdiness now that everyone is apart. Family is so important, like eating together by the dining table becomes a tradition that everyone will remember and look back upon with fond memories.

Will be back home for Chinese New Year in 40 odd days. Would like to bring some noise back home with me. Heh.

Quality of life has been so so of late. Eat, sleep, work. Heh, spending time with friends and family has been good. It keeps me down to earth, but I’ve been increasingly smug of late. Maybe it’s cause I feel I’m a little too mediocre and would like to stand out a bit. It’s a little out of character for me (although I feel it’s an innate emotion of mine to want to be noticed, just that I’ve become so accustomed to letting things be that I ignore it most of the time).

So what’s my problem? I’ve been told I should stand up more and take credit for the things I do. Yeah, maybe. Westerners have always been picky about copyright and patenting (if you invented, you can milk the cash cows for it). Most of all, it’s the association with recognition so that people don’t claim your work. I don’t dispute the idea and don’t really care much for it, the only annoying thing is if someone comes along, uses it and claims it for their own, then I’d be pissed off. Just as long as people use my ideas for the greater good, then I don’t really mind whether I take credit for it.

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Social activities.

Had a company Christmas party on the 2nd of December. That was light lunch, go karting and then bowling plus a 3 course dinner. Heh, go karting is fun, although I cannot imagine how the likes of Schumacher can maintain concentration for a couple of hours driving at 300+kph and still manage to accelerate at every corner. Go karting is fun, and a tip for driving is, if the kart doesn’t start shaking wildly on the straight road, it just means you’re not driving fast enough. Bowling is sort of a science to me. I’ve tried to emulate what I think is the proper way to do it, but the best way for me to get the ball straight is to just plonk the ball down a couple of centimetres before it touches the lane.

The 4th was a trip to Brighton beach with family and friends. Heh, the beach is fun, with the wind in the face and the rolling of waves onto the beach. Tossed the ball around a couple of times while flirting with the incoming waves on occasion. Left the beach being nearly lifted off by a gust of wind so strong that the sand hurt when it hit you. Had to keep my arms in front of my body to prevent them from being spattered with sand.

Vyanne and cousin cooked dinner on the 6th. Had a seafood pasta, stuffed mushrooms with cheese, chicken wings and pastry puffs. Very yum. All while the sky poured its soul out that evening. The weather’s been really erratic of late. I miss the times when I was back home starring out at the grey, misty horizon of buildings with nothing but the torrential rains as background music. The air would evolve from a stifling heat to the scent of fresh grass as the rain released the heavy net of heat that cast itself upon the land when the sun ruled the sky with its blazing rays. Heh, being poetic of late?

PS. Aunt made banana cake. Also yum.