Wedding...

A close family friend of mine got married recently and I got asked to make some cakes for them! I originally wanted to make the actual wedding cake but they said that the reception place was already providing a cake so alas! My first commisioned work of art is yet to materialise. Anyway, I made a few tasty cakes for them, as you shall soon see!

Act 1: Gastronomical Poetry...

First, there is Romance.

A dedication to the simple pureness of the first beautiful attraction.

Then comes Lust.
Tempestuous; wildly, uncontrollably enjoyable.

Lastly, there is Love.
Steady. But unbreakable.

I'LL GO ALL ARTS AND CRAFTS ON YOU!

[via Explosm.net]

Now with ECON1101 finished, I'm mildly free to do all the things that make me happy. Which usually doesn't involve other people. Keke. Mind you, for my microeconomics finals, I slept for HALF AN HOUR the night before (not studying, although I tried; I just sat in my bed for 8 hours. Talk about killer insomnia). Then when I went into the exam hall, I fell asleep during my exam. Woke up thinking WTF where am I? And why do I smell like horse-shit?

[Note: UNSW makes us do exams at the Randwick Racecourse, where the joyful smell of horse excrement wafts through the air as you try to recall what the frak Coase Theorem is and how it is relevant to your life.]

Anyway, with half my exams finished, I'm free to do random stuff! Like make things! I like making things! I wonder why. Actually, no I don't.

I made.....

1) A mask for my No-Face cosplay:

Does this not look amazing? It's supposed to look like this. I made it out of paper-mâché. I'm so crafty, I know! I didn't know it would dry so freakin hard so I had to make eye-holes using a hand drill! LOL. I can't wait to finish the costume.

2) A totally edible sugarpaste TIGER-LILY!

made my own sugar paste from icing sugar, gelatine and glucose (if you need a recipe ask; I'm feeling too lazy to write it). But they turn out pretty. I didn't have any stamens so it looks kinda empty in the middle. I'll need more experience.

3) A MAGICAL CAKE!

HEHE. Doesn't this look like it belongs in one of those claymation movies? Wallace and Gromit's wedding cake. Haha. I was just having a bit too much fun with fondant and food colouring.

Ah. That was fun to write about. Now I have to get back to studying finance. My exam is tomorrow and I am procrastinating! My uncle came from Singapore and I didn't get to go out with the family with my cousin COS OF DAMN EXAMS.

*Sigh*. Maybe next time...

Amazing biomimicry...

Watch this video of a flying machine (it's not computer graphics it's real) modelled on a jellyfish's structure and tentacle movements. Apparently biomimicry tends to result in very efficient designs, as natural selection removes inefficiencies from gene pools. Or watever other reason you want to believe.

I just think it's very beautiful.

[via EcoGeek]

Food Review: Cupcakes on Pitt!

Cuppy cakes cuppy cakes cup cup a'cuppa CAKE! Let's all sing the cupcake song! After uni today (MATH1151 tutorial ARGH) I had THE STRONGEST cravings for cupcakes. I was meant to take the train straight from Central back home but I was like stuff this and took the 394 bus to Pitt St @ Town Hall.

Straight to Cupcakes on Pitt!!

[Link]

A Young Foodie's Short Review:

Seeing as how cupcakes, mini-cakes, baby-cakes and all that sorta stuff is all the rage in Sydney right now I thought I might as well try it out. NOT! I JUST WALKED PASSED THE STORE BY ACCIDENT AND SAW THE PRETTIES AND HAD TO GO IN. Haha.

Well, for starters they make the best looking cupcakes out of places I've seen in real-life. Seriously pretty. They have a wide range of pretties. I bought 6 today. They're very pricey though. $2 a cupcake. Sigh. Here's the ones I bought:

The flavours I got were (starting from bottom-left going clockwise): Dark Chocolate, Pineapple Coconut, Tiramisu, Peppermint, Lemon-Meringue and Sticky Date Pudding. Now, the almighty question.

How did they TASTE!?

Well. For starters, I thought the muffin bases were a bit dry. I know! *Sob*. I didn't like how they used the same chocolate base for the tiramisu, the peppermint and the dark chocolate. They were all very dry. The peppermint was probably the worst. The buttercream on top was so fugly, and the mint flavour was too light. Almost bland. Tiramisu was nicer, still dry, but the coffee buttercream was much nicer.

The dark chocolate was nice. The moist ganache off-put the dryness of the muffin base so as long as I took big munches it was good. The coconut pineapple was quite nice. I'm very partial to pineapple so I might be a bit biased. The dessicated coconut pieces were a bit big and poking out everywhere. Not a nice feeling in your mouth, but very tasty.

Now for the big hitters. Sticky date was just DELICIOUS. The muffin was so moist (they didn't use the lame basic choc or vanilla base) and had bits of dates in it. YUM! And the caramel icing was so good. I microwaved it for a bit and it was so warm and good! Lemon meringue was also so very amazingly delicious. They used a vanilla cupcake base, but the core was dug out and filled with the lemon curd. It was so good. It's my favourite one!! Here's a close-up:

I'm not gonna do some out-of-10 kinda thing as it's so tacky. So, all in all, a nice experience. Not to mention I almost got hit by a truck crossing the road in peak-hour frenzy traffic to get there. Do give the place a visit! The service is very good and follow my cupcake recommendations and you should leave as a happy fellow.

Ciao!

The Candy Man!

[Note: Videos might not work yet. Be warned, the videos are of seriously crappy quality. I used my phone! But still, better than nothing ;D]

After uni on Friday I went with my friends to Circular Quay (Sydney Harbour basically) and we danced around and had heaps of fun. Here's a panorama-ish shot I took of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge with my phone's cool panorama function. I think it looks quite pretty:

After that we went to Sticky! The world's COOLEST CANDY SHOP!! They make THE most awesome lollies ever. They look so cool and taste oh so good. And the best part is that everything is hand-made, and they make it in front of your face! I stood there for an hour watching the guy make them. And now I can share it with you! YAY. Looky-look!


They are so pretty. Little designs of sugar. I was thinking, "HOW THE HELL DO THEY DO THIS?" and then the guy (his name is David) popped out and was like, "I'll give you a demonstration in 10 minutes." Cool! We danced around and talked to the people for a while (David used to be a lawyer but dumped it to be a candy man. LOL!) and then it finally started.

First he got out a humongous vat of super hot BOILING sugar syrup at 160 degrees celsius and poured it on to a metal bench in front of him (turns out it was a water-cooled metal thing). His assistant (Lily; she has cool hair) helped him get all the bits out:


Then Lily got out some colours and added them into the sugar and started mixing. Normally, I'm not much of an anti-artificial-stuff kinda person, like I'm ok with food colouring and stuff, but some of these colours freaked me out a bit! For example, to make the sugar syrup white (like opaque white) he added this weird white stuff. I asked David what it was and he said it was titanium dioxide. I WAS LIKE LOL WTF? He told me it was biologically inert and I was like, "Umm. Oh ok. Fair enough!" but still slightly creeped out. Anyway, here's a pic of the blue:

Here's a video!

It was cool how David worked on one side and Lily on the other side. You could tell they were a really good team. Here's the creepy titanium dioxide stuff. Didn't stop me from eating it though:


The just-a-moment-ago boiling sugar cooled pretty quick because the table was cool (LOL PUN!) and so then they slid off the metal guiding things, leaving a funky weird pliable sugar mass to work with. They started cutting it into sections (to separate the colours) and then kneaded it:

Here's a video of them folding the sugar around:

After some kneading (using heavy insulating gloves, of course) this is what we were left with on Lily's side of the cool-table. A blue blob!


Unfortunately, old titanium-white had to be a bit weird, and so kneading it was not enough! To make it really pretty and have a nice sheen, the white sugar mass had to be pulled. Literally! The point of it is to incorporate air. Kinda like a meringue. Anyway, David used a hook and some cool technique to do it:

Pull, pull, PULL!!

Magically, a creamy looking mass remained:

Then we were left with 3 blobs of cool sugar syrup:

Now the three blobs of sugar are ready to be worked with. They were making a candy that spelt "AUSTRALIA". David had to slowly make all the letters in a long 3D kinda way so that when u cut it the cross-section spelt "Australia". Pretty cool, eh? Here's Lily fixing them up:


It's then rolled into a big giant cylinder and wrapped in another layer of sugar for decorative purposes. And extra flavour, I think. Video:



NOW FOR THE AMAZING PART! The huge barrel-looking sugar mass is then stretched out into a skinny tube, which is then sliced up into the lollies! Isn't that SO amazing?? You end up with miniature versions of the big thing!! AWESOME.

Stretching it....

And then chopping them up!

I think Lily does most of the chopping. She's really pro. She uses a tool that's kinda like that teppenyaki sort of thing. She's make an awesome teppenyaki chef!! She puts the candy rods on a mini anvil and then chops away, packs them into jars, and sells them for a ridiculous profit!!

WIN!

Chemistry is DONE!

Finally I've finished my chemistry notes! HOORAY!! Let's celebrate with a nice section of the Mandelbrot Set. Utter nerd celebration (LAWL):

Pure MATH. Isn't it beautiful?

This is why HSC is not good for you...

Today was another one of those days when HSC just got to me and I flipped and did something crazy. Do you have those days? Let's hope it doesn't happen to too many people, the world is crazy enough. Anyway, the stress levels got so high that the spirit of Jackson Pollock raped me and forced me to paint.

"Paint, fool! PAINT!!" his spirit cried to me. And paint I did:

Wow. Now isn't this just a masterpiece? Here's a close-up:

OMFG. It wasn't Jackson Pollock, it was SADAKO!!

Anyhoo, here's real JP painting for you to compare.

I still think mine's better. Hehe (NOT). His paintings are nice. Very colourful and weird. Although I wouldn't pay $140 million dollars for one of them, like some crazy nut did. Ok, the real story is I found some photocopy machine toner in the shed, and we don't have a photocopy machine so I decided that it was free-for-all, so I opened it and started playing around with it. I burned it, threw it around, sniffed it (joke) and put it in a cup and mixed it with oil. Voila! Instant black paint. It got boring sitting there in a cup so I threw it on the fence.

Hope mum doesn't see it. HEHE.

Hoarder

Today, the rubbish hoarded in our family for over a decade was finally thrown away. I think if my dad finds out he'll freak. LOL. Well that's too bad isn't it? Lucky he's not even in this country. The hoarding genes definitely come from my dad; let's just hope I didn't inherit too much of it.

Anyway, my mum called up the council to use one of our 2 free bulk-rubbish collection days. Then she went and decided to throw EVERYTHING out. I think it's one of those turn-over-a-new-leaf slash I-want-to-get-rid-of-my-past hidden under the cover of happy Spring Cleaning! Ah well, I don't mind. I hate clutter. Have a peek:

Tons and tons of boxes (I know, wtf, why so many boxes!?) I think after we unpacked after moving here, we didn't really get round to throwing them away. Chairs, suitcases, empty drawers, junk symbolising millenia of repression (oops!). Can you see Imposter in the background? Hehe.

There was more junk out the front. A LOT more. Poor rubbish people. Look! Cupboards, more boxes, a toy-car, chairs (heaps of chairs, another major weird), TWO washing machines (WTF), a car bonnet (HAHA) and an oven. Yes, an oven. We really like to hoard our big appliances.

Another view of the rubbish. I wasn't really that embarrased about it. Some of my siblings were. Ah well, it's just another part of the weirdness of my life. Add a full rubbish bin or two!

I found this painting hidden amongst the junk. It's such a beautiful painting! I didn't want it to get thrown in to the junk. So I stole it and hid it HEHE. Damn it, my hoarder genes are coming out again...

Sword Fighting

Guess what I started today....? JAPANESE SWORD FIGHTING! Like full-on with wooden katanas and stuff. It's SO awesomeee. My arms are dead tired from the training. It was in a park, with a small group of people. It was my first lesson, so I was pretty nOOb. Ah well, I'll get better! It's really weird 'cos most of the strength comes from one arm, so I have one arm ache. I hope I don't end up with an out-of-proportion body.

Here's a sort of mosaic-ish photo (that is a mosaic right??) of the wooden sword. It was too long to take with a single photo, so I joined 3 together!

Pretty, eh?

In other, more predictable news, I took a photo of myself and it was TUBBY. Dude, you gotta cut back on the cream puffs!! ARGH. I feel bad. I can't stop eating. Food is nice.

I started watching Popular again. Greaaat. Another distraction...

Nature Photography

I discovered the wonders of macro photography today. I was walking around my backyard, stressing out about my HSC, enjoying the cool air, and I stopped to look at my rosebush (well, technically not mine but since I hacked pruned it, it's mine).

IT WAS COVERED IN APHIDS.

Nasty little ugly green things that attack roses. Anyway, I went to take a photo of it, but the damn camera just wouldn't focus properly. Grrr! Then I discovered the macro setting, and OMG voila! The most amazing pictures came out! Looky look:

A rosebud being raped by aphids. So vibrant!

Another bud! I love the young red leaves.

Oh! Pretty little ladybug.

It's a spider trying to eat Mr. Ladybug.

OMFG. I found a green spider! KEWL!!

Aren't these photos amazing? And I don't exactly have the steadiest hand either. ROFL. Anyway, co-op applications close tomorrow, then I can freakin' get on with my life studies...

Ciao!

Muck-Up Day One

Oh my God. OH MY GAWD!!!

Yesterday was Muck-Up DAY!! Pure insanity! For those who live in a hole, Muck-Up Day is usually one of the last days of high-school when you go nuts and do retarded things (usually pranks, but retarded is better. LOL) like shaving cream, eggs, etc. According to wiki it's an Australian tradition. WTF? What is wrong with the rest of the world!! This is the best day of the year!!! LET IT ALL OUT PPL! ALL THOSE YEARS OF POINTLESSNESS!!!

REVENGE!!

Before Lock-Down:

Anyway, HAHA, it started the night before. Some of my peeps (who shalt remain unnamed) filled balloons with paint and threw them on the school. HAHA. I WANTED IN. Damn it. Funny thing is that the school gates were open at night (major weird) so they just went in and chucked paint everywhere LOLL. There were big splotches everywhere it looked sooo hilarious. Then it rained and washed most of it away. God was giving us a sign. Which we ignored. Tsk tsk.

And then they blamed the girls. LMFAO. Can you believe it? Mr Daomawich and his posse came out to look at the "damage" and I heard them say, "Why would anyone do this?" LMAO. Such naivety...

Haha, the next day the plans were unfolded only a little bit, damn teachers. We flooded the toilets with detergent, that was weird (it actually worked ZOMG-LOL) and shaving creamed the whole school in a most imaginative way:

Now, little children, only plebians use shaving cream from the nozzle. What you do is FREEZE the can overnight, and then when you want to use it, use a CAN OPENER to open it from the bottom. Then throw it wherever you want, and VOILA! Chaos in a can! Sunny days are better. And it doesn't really expand that fast, so pick a discreet spot, will you?

We threw a few cans in the drains, on the roof, etc. Didn't get to see the outcome though, BECAUSE after that, the damn teachers realised something was going on, kicked out all the Year-12ers and put the school in LOCKDOWN. No joke! At MFIS, lockdown means lockdown. They bolted all the gates and called all our parents (supposedly) and put the security guard out to not let us in. Lucky he's a mole HEHE.

The CRASH:

Of course, with muck-up, you need noise. And what better noise can you get than a car full of teenagers and a working CAR HORN. HAHA. We got into Ahmed's car, and drove around honking insanely, laughing like lunatics. At that point, we should have realised: "Hmm, mebbe we are going a little too fast. 80 in a 40 zone is probably not a good idea." Unfortunately we were too busy laughing, and then OMFG we crashed. After the crash this is what the car looked like:


LMFAO. Just kidding. That's the car we vandalised decorated later on.

But anyway, WE FULL CRASHED INTO A HILUX IN FRONT OF US. It was insane. Like, it wasn't really that bad a crash, the car just clipped the Hilux, but the view from the windscreen was so insanely scary. I am SO lucky Ahmed is the best driver in our year, no joke. His driving skills saved us HARD.

And some lewzer called the cops but they decided WTF who cares and drove off pretty quick. You gotta love ghetto cops haha. Anyway, that put Ahmed out of action (*sigh*) and he called his dad and apparently his dad and his uncle laughed at him all the way home.

At this point we must realise that not all of us are lucky enough to have dads that own European Car Dealerships. Hence if we crashed our dad's BMWs we would not live long enough to write this. Some people are just lucky like that LMAO.

The whole bloody school came out to see, and being the attention whore I are, I was retelling the story in dramatic tones to everyone. And then I went to help Ahmed out of his emotional trauma.

I know, my priorities are just perfect ;D

Time for some ART:

Later on, as we recovered from the trauma, the crew (Me, Dominatrix, Ghetto-Queen, Ray-Ray, Layla, Fatty, Sayed and Daher) went off into the bush to rest, and we came across the car above. A deserted car + a bag full of spray cans = ART. I swear you would be scared if you saw our faces as we painted the car. It was like REPRESSION OF 12 YEARS UNLEASHED. We were painting it, screaming, smashing the windows. Fun fun:

You should see the roof. LOL. "Satan is Hot", "666", "I LOVE JESUS". Not to mention the clearest of them all, on the bonnet, "Nemra slept with Ali", which we DIDN'T DO BTW. Inside joke. Ok, fine I'll tell you. It's a statement insinuating copulation between a teacher and the principal. What barbarian would DO SUCH A THING??

It's even funnier when you realise that just a few minutes ago SOMEONE TOTALLY UNRELATED TO US spray painted this on the pavement:


Some skank went and removed this beautiful work of art. Guess how? They got pebbles, and SCRATCHED IT OFF. Can you believe it??

Ok, right now I really can't be bothered to write anymore, so the post quality will degrade significantly from this point on. Note that chronology will now be ignored, because time is inconsequential in the non-reality that is Muck-Up day.

Biatch At Macca's:

We went to McDonalds and got harrassed by this utter SKANK. She wouldn't move up to give us extra space (WE HAD SEVEN PPL) and so we completely destroyed her life. It was so much fun! When she started smoking we all did *cough* CANCER *cough*, and when she left Macca's we all started clapping it was hilarious! Then when she was in her car she gave us the finger, and Daher did UBER NASTY VULGAR symbol to her I was on the FLOOR laughing!! Then Rai lost the plot and threw coke on me. WHY!! I am so hurt. XP.

Cling-Wrapping Principal's Car:

HAHA! WE ACTUALLY DID IT!! LMFAOOOO! Damn! If only we'd taken photos!! It was seriously the freakiest thing we did on the day. We snuck back into the school (lockdown, remember?) and then we ran up to the principal's car and started frantically covering it with cling-wrap hahahaha. Some little kids saw us and REPORTED US! WHAT LITTLE BUTTHOLES! The vice-principal saw us and started running towards us and we were SHITTING OUT PANTS and we boltedddd! It was so scary. The security guard told us to run for our lives, cos they were gonna chase us with cars. CARS! OMFG. Then we ran like crazy and hid in the paper-factory next door. HAHA.

LESBIAN Crop Circles (NOT gay-pride OK!):

We walked to Sayed's house mansion and laughed our heads off, hearts pounding like crazy. Of course, time for some photos:


Hopefully no-one we know finds my blog, but if you do, and you go snitching, be warned. WE CAN BE QUITE SCARY. Anyhoo, how cute is this photo?? It's the sort of thing you show your kids in 30 years time and laugh at how much fun your teenager years were.

Anyway, we got out my trusty cans of spray paint again, jumped on the grass on the park next to Sayed's house and made crop-circles! Our colours were kinda weird, so it turned out really funky, and "lesbian". No idea. It turned out we all had different star signs so woohoo! Funky pagan cult dancing time! I was aries, so I had to do a Ram dance. Was fun. LoL.

Anyway, I'm really tired right now, this probably wasnt the best coverage of the days events, but ah well, I tried. Now all that's left is Muck-Up Day 2 on Monday...

Eating: Fried fish-balls dipped in chilli sauce. Very Asian.

Mood: TIRED!

Islamic Art Exhibition

12 Centuries Of Treasure From The World's Finest Private Collection:

The Nasser D. Khalili Islamic Art Collection

I went to the Art Gallery of New South Wales for the first time on Saturday! Yes, I am so unrefined. Ah well, it was a nice experience (except for the part when I was happily walking on the grass to the entrance and accidentally stepped on something rather risque; shameless people. It was still WET. I pray it was the rain.)


Anyway, the collections of stuff were pretty kewl. It's nice to know people are being exposed to some good sides of Islamic history, as opposed to all the nastiness propagated these days. Not that I'm saying we're awesome or anything; we have our flaws. MAJOR flaws. But who doesn't?

I went with my family, a few other people, and our impromptu tour guide, Sheikh Naeem. It was so cool having him there, because he knew all the history, and he could read the ancient Qurans and other texts in the Kufic script. People were crowding all around to hear what he was saying, it was nice. Heh. The other styles of Arabic were so amazing too. The textiles, the astrolabes, etc. PRETTY!


THEN, when we went to have a coffee at a Gloria Jean's in one of the shopping places in the city on Pitt Street, it really struck me how scared (or suspicious?) people think of muslims. We had to pray 'Asr, so we went inside fire-escape exit (we make do with what we have LOL) to pray in peace. Then a security guard comes and takes my brother away because someone CALLED UP SECURITY AND SAID THEY SAW SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY! HAHA! I bet it was 'cos Sheikh Naeem's turban set off their terrorist sensors. Ah well, the security guard just started chatting with him, and turns out he's from Lakemba too (LOL) so he knows how paranoid these bogans are. All's well.

Eating: Popiah, deep-fried and dipped in chilli sauce. Popiah are SO NICE! They're a Malay appetiser that's like spring rolls, except that they are filled with a curry (like kima aloo). YUM.

Mood: Happy! Finished a chemistry exam today! I HEART CHEMISTRY!

Revealio!

That woke you up didn't it? Haha, its all Am's fault, I thought people would get my art. Maybe it's just her XD LOL. Anyway...

Contact Adhesives...

Epiphany!

I had no idea that contact adhesives bond to themselves! That is sooo weird. And really interesting too. No wonder they tell you to let both sides dry for 20 minutes, haha! I never used to listen to that.

Maybe that's why everything I own is falling apart LOL. Ok, back to sticking this towel holder onto the toilet wall...

Drinking: Milk tea! What else!?

Fine Piece of Ass!

Oops. I meant "Fine Piece of Art". Not. Anyway, here's a little funky little sketch I made in my sister's notepad when I was dragged to an Islamic class when I totally wasn't in the right mood for it. See if you can decipher it's message:

I think it kinda says something about me when being bored in an Islamic class makes me draw amorous plants...

Eating: Pineapple upside-down cake soaked in CUSTARD!!

Mood: Nervous as hell about my lame upcoming exams...