Back to the dinner series. Tonight’s meal was burger and fries. It was kind of simple, just peeled the potatoes, cut them into wedges and fried them in oil. Heh, although one should really eat their food as soon as it’s prepared as things go cold quite fast. The burger had salad, cheddar, ketchup and raw onions, for the zing. Usually I’d butter the bread buns, but just only heated them in the pan today.

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This was last week’s acquisition, the Eee PC on the right, next to my 12″ laptop. Heh, I know I said it wasn’t quite right for me, but while at the Apple Store on 14th St and playing with the iPhone a bit, I realised that even with a smallish screen, web browsing was very much doable. Firefox 3 (in beta as I write this) has the same capability as Safari and Opera to zoom in and out of pages to fit your screen size, so this left me with only one worry for the Eee PC. I wasn’t sure if the keyboard would be too small for me. When it finally arrived on Tuesday, I plucked it out from it’s packaging and tried my hand at typing stuff. It’s 2/3 the size of a regular keyboard but my not so giant Asian hands fit it quite nicely, and typing at the regular 70 words per minute wasn’t too difficult.

The Eee PC comes with the Xandros Linux operating system. My short week with it has allowed me to discover how fun Linux is as an operating system. If all I did was email, surf the web, do instant messaging, watched videos and listened to music, I think Linux would be the easy way to go. Unfortunately, there is still a steep learning curve, and I’d still need to know how things work before I’m comfortable migrating over to it as a daily operating system. One thing that impressed me was the responsiveness of the system (it’s a lowly 900MHz Celeron which has been underclocked) and eventhough I upgraded the internal memory to 2GB, for once I think that this is overkill for a system. Starting up, running Firefox, Skype and Pidgin (instant messenger) barely used up 250MB of RAM. Talk about efficient. Heh.

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Heh, sort of dragging myself towards the finishing line of this marathon race that is at the moment. It’s nearly a year now I’ve been here and I am quite happy to go back to Melbourne. Heh, other than the many great options of being a consumer here in the States (you get cheap electronics, speedy internet, cheap food), I’m quite happy to just go back to Melbourne. Sure it doesn’t rain as much and we have water restrictions, and it’s ok that things are higher priced due to logistics (and apparently they researched that Australians were more willing to tolerate higher prices, I’m like what????) as most things are imported anyway. It’s also okay that Australia’s telecommunications infrastructure is quite backward (due to the vastness of land here, it’s not feasible to spend so much on it, or some other reasons), meaning we get crappy Internet where I stay. It’s just a happier place to be at the moment. I can go for weekend brunches, do my grocery shopping at various outlets, get the freshest foods, do my own cooking, invite friends/relatives over for meals, go out with them to try new restaurants or just hang out. Heh, having a beer and watching soccer together with people is one of the simplest pleasures that I enjoy. Quite happy being simple.

It’s been a busier weekend than usual. Heh, having only a couple of months left in New York, I decided that I should spend more time exploring the city, regardless of weather. Prior to this, it’s been too cold at sub zero temperatures to even want to leave the comfort of a warm apartment. Heh, it’s not everyday you get to stay and experience a foreign place.

On Saturday, the weather was forecasted to rain and it did rain. For the entire day. Heh, was up early to catch the FA cup match between Manchester United and Porstmouth, and it was a really unlucky day for United, as eventhough they dominated for most of the match, were failed by the last touch that would send the ball in. A moment of madness caused them to concede a penalty and when you defend 10 men to the ball, it’s very difficult to come back into the game.

Got to Time Square early and caught a movie. Watched Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day. Heh, just wanted to catch a movie for $6 (anything before noon is priced at half) and it received good reviews, had Amy Adams and Lee Pace acting in it, which was reason enough for me to go watch it. It’s a simple romantic comedy, but the performances were great and it’s endearing to that end.

After the movie I just wandered towards the east side of mid town. Visibility was exceptionally poor as the rain was pouring very heavily and it became rather misty. Ended up by the United Nations building but couldn’t see more than a third of it sticking out as the rest of it was covered in mist. Wandered around for more photo opportunities but finally gave up as it was pouring wet for the rest of the day. Here are some photos from the day.

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On Sunday, I decided to go lookup a coffee shop at Chelsea Market. Was looking up free wifi spots in NYC and came across this shop called Ninth Street Espresso. Checked out their website and they seemed to indicate they may make something better than the terribly bland coffee I’ve been subjecting myself to the last few months while I’ve been here.

Heh, today it was bright and sunny but the sub zero temperatures had returned and the strong winds didn’t cozy me up to the weather. As I was walking to the subway station, I noticed these buds sprouting and I knew spring was here.

I got off a stop earlier than what I’d normally do when I go to work and ended up on Christopher St. It was like discovering NYC once again as it was my first time in this part of town. I wandered around and with NYC, you get a different sense of the environment with the mixture of older and newer buildings. You walk a couple of blocks and the scenery changes entirely.

Just pointing myself towards Chelsea Market, I stumbled upon the 14 Street Apple Store that opened late last year. It’s a massive place (3 storeys high) and I managed to tinker around with the computers and gadgets there. You don’t get this opportunity very often in the 5th Avenue Store south of Central Park as that one is always jam packed. Heh, was fiddling with the iPhone again and it really is an ingenious piece of engineering.

Anyway, I walked a block up and arrived at Chelsea Market. Heh, it’s one of those places you need to know before hand as you can just easily walk pass it without realising it’s there. I entered the large building and saw the various shops around. Heh, definitely one of the places you’d want to see if you came to NYC. There were plenty of different foods to choose from and the building seemed to be previously used as a factory with the red brick walls looming over you.

I arrived at my coffee shop and it was just a small corner in the giant complex. I ordered my latte and at $4, was very much worth it, as you can see below.

I have not seen a rosetta (the flowery shape on top of the coffee) made anywhere else in NY and I was just grinning wide when I sipped the coffee. It was not boiling hot (well, close to that anyway when they serve coffee here), it didn’t taste bitter and the milk was just a silky smooth texture. The above is actually a mug more than a cup and I’m not very sure how many shots were used but the coffee was medium strength, so maybe a little less kick than what people are used to drinking.

Anyway, this is what Chelsea Market looks like inside.

There are many other shops inside and I was a little shy to point my camera at the various yummy looking delights for sale. Heh, as I left, I reiterated to myself that this was definitely a place to go visit.

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With all the hustle and bustle of the weekend, I would just like to mention I’m pleased with the election results in Malaysia over the weekend. I’ve been reading and hearing too many stories of the abuse of power and the lack of aid the normal citizen got from ruling government and having sat in their ivory tower for so long, they were complacent and took the nation for granted.

It is sad to see a country like Malaysia with its natural resources and resilient people being squandered by a select few at the top who see fit to use their power for their own gain.

I just hope that the newly elected opposition members will keep their promise for a more transparent government whose interest lies in serving the public good. The outcome was just something everyone hoped for but now that it has transpired, we want to see more changes in the right direction.

Heh, and now all I want to do is just zone out for the remainder of my weekend after so much walking today and yesterday.

Was taken out to dinner yesterday and the whole company went. This was the Gotham Bar and Grill. As with all fine dining places, the lighting is very dim, so it made it difficult for me to take photos, although for once, ISO2000 and the lens at f/2 allowed me to take photos at 1/50s. Go D300! Heh, just included some samples of the food we had.

Tuna Tartare

Foie Gras on caramelised pineapple

Strangely enough, everyone had different opinions of the food served that night. Everything looked a little too dark for me, but tastewise, the food was pretty good I felt. This is my second try of foie gras, and this was pan seared, which gave it a little more oil and a fatty taste to it, as opposed to the pate format at Per Se.

The weird photo colours are due to me playing with white balance only later on. I still believe in lighting my subjects, but at a restaurant, it was already quite inappropriate of me flashing my big camera while everyone was preparing to eat. Heh, my boss made sure I noticed that.