Month: June 2008

General

Siomai

By on Monday, June 30, 2008

Siomai is Chinese dumpling. I suppose there is a strict definition of it somewhere but here it’s usually a dumping with a filling of pork, beef, or shrimp. Michelle’s recipe involves mixing pork and shrimp but you can easily play around with your own combination.

1 kilo ground pork
1 kilo chopped shrimp
1 cup oat meal (binder and extender)
1 cup minced onions
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper
olive oil
siomai wrappers
soy sauce
calamondon (kalamansi)
chili paste

Thoroughly mix pork, shrimps, oat meal, onion, salt, pepper, and olive oil into a bowl.
Put one tablespoon of mix into a siomai wrapper, close, and seal.
Boil water in a steamer.
When it’s steaming, brush the steamer with olive oil and put the siomai in.
Steam for 15-20 minutes.
Serve with dip made of soy sauce, kalamansi, and chili paste.

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General

Wanted

By on Saturday, June 28, 2008

If you’re a fan of hard-hitting gun-slinging extreme action flicks like The Matrix Trilogy, Equilibrium, Underworld, and Underworld Evolution. then you will like this movie as I did. It is loosely based on the graphic novel of the same name. An accountant (and you know all the jokes) finds himself in the middle of a vendetta between The Fraternity, a group of assassins, and an errant former member. Soon he finds himself taking the side of the fraternity, training to be an assassin, and going after the errant member. Non-stop highly-entertaining action from start to finish. And then there’s Angelina Jolie…

Rating: 4/5

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General

Retrenchment

By on Friday, June 27, 2008

A month or two ago, there was a retrenchment in a company where some friends work. And it got me wondering about its impact: of learning that you’re being retrenched, the uncertainty whether you will be retrenched, the doubts about the future of the company…  too many morale busters. Then suddenly it happened to the company. Luckily, IT wasn’t affected… for now. But you can still see the detrimental effect on everyone. How should a company handle it? How do we handle it? The only answer I can think of is to go on and keep doing what we’re doing. After all, we’re not the only ones with that sword hanging over our heads.

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General

Write Protected USB Storage Devices

By on Wednesday, June 25, 2008

I encountered a vexing problem right about the time I got my Nokia 5310. My Thinkpad T60 won’t write to the phone when connected as a storage device. I thought it was a phone problem and I asked Nokia Support for help but as expected, they weren’t really able to help. Meanwhile, I was stuck using Bluetooth to transfer files. No fun. Later, I noticed that my external hard drives, card readers, and generally USB storage devices don’t work either. I tried searching for a solution and eventually I found it. You just need to use the registry editor to delete the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies\WriteProtect. Voila! I can now write to USB storage devices. How that key got into my system registry, I don’t know. Another one of the many wonders of Windows.

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General

Tinola

By on Tuesday, June 24, 2008

After sinigang, Michelle now has taught me how to cook tinola. I’m gonna be a cook! Haha. Below is the recipe.

6 pieces chicken wings (pakpak)
1 cup sliced chayote (sayote)
¼ cup ginger (luya)
¼ cup onion (sibuyas)
¼ cup minced garlic (bawang)
1 bunch chili leaves (dahon ng sili)

Boil chicken wings in pot until tender
Remove chicken wings and add chayote
Mince ginger, onion, and garlic.
Sautee ginger, onion, and garlic in pan.
Add chicken wings into pan and sear slightly
Pour everything into pot
Add chili leaves
Serve hot with fish sauce

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