Clementine flourless cake

A couple of weeks ago, my cousin cooked the yummiest clementine cake eva. I found the receipe today and may I recommend it to you? :-)

375g clementines (about 4-5)
6 eggs
225g sugar
250g ground almonds
1 heaped teaspoon of baking powder

1 - put clementines in a pan with cold water and bring to boil. Cook for 2 hours. Drain and let cool slightly. Cut clementines in half and take out the seeds. Puree them with skin.
2 - Preheat oven to 190C (375F)
3 - Whisk eggs. Add sugar, almonds and baking powder and mix well. Add in the clementine puree and mix.
4 - Pour into a 21cm buttered and floured cake pan and bake (on the middle rack) for approx 40 mins. Then cover with foil and bake for another 20 mins.

Then cut yourself a piece and enjoy!
Yum!
Btw, this seems to be a recipe by Nigella Lawson and seems to be very famous. Just try searching for it!

Rachel The Movie

Last night I watched the movie Rachel Getting Married and I loved it so much. Seriously I think I was crying through half the movie (do I seem to be crying a lot recently??)
The movie is about a young girl Kym leaving rehab for a couple of days to go home and attend her sister's (Rachel) wedding, which is this beautiful concoction of music. I thought the movie was so heartfelt and beautifully filmed, focusing mainly on the relationship between the sisters. There were these scenes of Kym feeling so much pressure and stress, her face is just about to shatter. In between the story which covered the dysfunctional family and their past tragedies, there are these long wedding scenes, the dancing and the toasts and the singing, which wonderfully builds the atmosphere and also the secondary characters. This, along with the rest of the movie which primarily follows Kym, makes the movie nice and balanced. You end up loving both sisters and appreciate their differences and at the end of it, what came out of the movie was the strength of sisterly love.
One of my favourite movies ever.
Why did it only get 7.1 in imdb???

Paris Dreams with a Stranger

Grace Jones - Strange
(complements of AACM)

Strange I've seen that face before
Seen him hanging round my door
Like a hawk stealing for the pray
Like the night waiting for the day

TLC

I've been in CanadaLand the past week or so, being a kid again, not doing anything and watching Tv, while being spoilt by mi madre :-) I am usually a CNN fan since I don't have it at home but what i like to watch in the mornings is the show What Not to Wear. It's kind of fun because you see people who (you hope) are worst dressed than you and then you learn what they should wear etc. This channel also has a lot of baby shows. Straight after the WNTW show, there is a Baby Story show which is like a documentary of a couple who are pregnant and they go through the birth etc. Oh My... did that get my clock ticking. The whole baby thing is so amazing. Imagine being able to bring to life another little human being - Amazing no? It is one of the most wonderous things in the world. And then a little kid belongs to you and they will grow up. It's amazing amazing.

A living nightmare.... Action!

Last night I had a really stressful and scary dream. Ajax and I lived in a small unit in a motel like building where we were attending a summer school of some kind. I started thinking that someone was stalking me. On multiple occasions, there was someone in a car just watching the house. One day I came home and realized someone had been through the house. This happened again. The guy watching the house was still watching.I think they had taken something small from the bedroom. One night when Ajax was away, I realized that someone was again watching the house but there were two people in the car. I turned off all the lights but then i decided to come back and make sure all the windows are closed. I noticed one which had been used by the bad people to come in. There was another window that was stuck and refused to close. Meanwhile I was so scared you wouldn't believe. One of the bad guys (the third person which turned out to be a girl) came towards the house and was looking in thru the windows and calling out to me. I kept trying to turn off lights but there was always one light which was on so they could see me. Finally I though I had closed eveything and decided to go to bed (although i was too scared to sleep). Just as I was sleeping, I realized they were at it again so i decided to call 911 but the home phone kept dialing wrong and cell phone's battery was exhausted. I was sure that the stalkers had done something to mess up with my systems. As I am scrambling to use attach my cell phone to the charger and dial 911 -- this one works --- the door opened and all these zombies/people attacked. I never managed to tell the operator what was wrong but i started screaming and i think i half fainted. The operator was speaking calmly and started talking to the attackers who then decided not to attack, esp since they seemed to be actors! It turned out that this whole thing had been a movie production and I was the star except they wanted me to have honest reactions so they decided not to tell me and just let me go thru all, giving real emotion. Afterwards I got totally pissed off because i was so scared and so horrified. I wouldn't authorize them to use my pictures so their whole endeavour was wasted but they kept trying to get me to change my minds.

What a dream huh. No a nightmare becuase i was so scared through it. A dream in three acts: stalk, attack, the next day. I know i am missing a lot of details of the dream but I am pretty impressed i remember this much and in such detail.
Crazy.

A Tale of Much Woe

I have had an interesting time applying for jobs since my graduation. Almost immediately when i started my application process, I found a very interesting position with a good company. Over a short period, I had a number of interviews and then I was told the team liked me and were going to make me an offer but they had to get approval. Since I liked the team and seemed everything was working out I stopped applying and kept myself busy with work. A month later i was still waiting in limbo with no end in sight. I had a crisis period before I started applying again, this time like crazy. As days passed, my range of what I considered suitable jobs increased and increased. It's quite interesting when one day you are ignoring a job because you think that is not suitable but then the next day when you don't see any new open positions, you go back and say well, maybe that first position wasn't that bad!
Anyhow, so currently I have another offer waiting to happen -- a pretty good one too. iYay for me! I haven't signed anything yet but it looks much more promising. The funny thing is that i am still looking at the job websites every morning and applying. Just now I organized another interview for a job which is not that interesting but heck... I can't seem to say no. Now it's like a compulsion, a game, where I apply just to see how it goes. It has been really interesting going through the interviews as well. The technical questions are kind of fun now. Maybe I am only thinking that because I have the potential offer now. I remember when I first started the process I was really afraid. It was the first time I was going thru these technical interviews where over the course of a day, you meet with 10 people one by one. But I've been learning how to prepare.
Anyway so my tale is not so much woe -- atleast I am hoping it won't be.
To Be Continued.

Hu1u for n0n-US residents

If you want to watch Hulu or one of the US TV network's webcontent (which is usually solely for US residents) and have never been able to because it requires you to be watching in the US... this guide is for you.
How to bypass the country check at South Park Studios and in other places.

1. Get Firefox.
2. Download & Install "Modify-Headers"
3. Go to Tools -> Modify Headers
4. Click Configuration and check Always On: Enable ... and Open Modify Headers ....
5. At the top select "Add" from the drop down list. Type in X-Forwarded-For in the field to the left of the drop down list and 12.13.14.15 in the other one. Nvm the third field
6. Press "Add" and select your new lines and press Enable/disable if it isn't already enabled.
7. ????
8. Profit and watch South Park.

If someone can confirm that this works, it would be great.

Update: ok this doesn't seem to work for Hulu but it did work for comedy central. For Hulu, seems there are these VPN solutions.

Remember Me

Yesterday I was listening to This American Life on NPR which is a collection of stories and essays and field recordings. It's really interesting and thought provoking.
There was one particular story which I thought was so beautifully told and powerful and sad.
David Wilcox tells the story of how his mother, who was dying of lung cancer, made a short videotape for his sister, who is severely developmentally disabled. She hoped the tape would become a daily part of her daughter's life, like the other music and movies she liked to play, that she would watch it and remember her mother. But she also knew her daughter might never even see it.
If you get the chance, go to the website and listen to the podcast or online.

Epiphany

Today Ajax and I played a demo of Resident Evil 5. My second coop first person shooter game.
2 reasons why I didn't like RE5.
(1) too gruesome! I don't like so much gore and blatant violence. Guns is one thing, but axes and knives are totally different.
(2) I prefer distanced fighting. It is stressful (I don't know if that is the right word) for zombies to physically attack you.
oh and the controls seriously sucked! The controls of resistance are so much better!
The other girl in my clan also didn't like RE5 because she felt it was too stressful.

Dare I generalize the above two reasons for all female gamers?

Speaking of luck...

My husband is a very lucky, LUCKY man.
He managed to hook his wife on a game.
Now she cajoles him into playing one more game.
Last night:

husband: I am so sleepy. I am going to sleep.
me: no just one more game. We have a good group going.
husband: no no I am really sleepy.
me: Just one more game.
husband: no...
me: puh-leaze! I'll owe you one...

That man is a lucky lucky man. I thought women were the ones that tried to change men once they got them in a relationship. Alas he is the true Pied Piper in our relationship.