Cuillére

Last night was the final session for the current module of my French class and the classmates decided to have dinner together at Cuillére at Serendra. The first thing I noticed was that plastered on the windows were the words “Cuisine et Patisserie Francaise, Glaces Artisanales, Aperitifs, Vins, Café Digestifs” which I think literally means French Kitchen and Bakery, Artistic Ice, Wine, Wine, and Digestive Coffee :P I don’t know whatever the hell it really means but with all those claims, the place just sounds so trying overly hard to be French.

But hey, I’m here for the food, right? Aside from the company, of course. Well, I had mushroom soup, steak, and crème brûlée and that didn’t improve my opinion. The mushroom soup was so-so. So was the steak (but in fairness, how many ways can you steak a cow?) . And the crème brûlée sucks. The taste does not reflect the cost. I don’t know where the cost came from but I suspect a load of it went into all that pretentiousness and the rest went into the location. One of the reasons why I’d rather go for restaurants that are off the beaten track.

Rating: 2/5

Asus EEE PC 900

asuseeepc900.jpgThe Asus EEE PC 900 has been shown by Asus at CeBIT 2008. It’s got the same small and cute form factor as the originals but now has an 8.9″ screen, 1GB or RAM, and 12GB SSD. Those are exactly what I’ve been waiting for! Time to start saving up.

More info here and video here.

No Country For Old Men

No Country For Old Men is not an easy movie to watch. It is full of subtleties and nuances in addition to the in your face violence. Throw in the Texas drawl to the mix and you’re guaranteed to have a hard time understanding everything. A small-towner running away with a bag of cash he finds from a drug deal gone bad (imagine lots of dead people and even a dog too, that bad). A psychotic professional (and really scary) killer running after him. People dying left and right (and up and own). It sound like your average predictable thriller, but it’s actually unpredictable and quite riveting all the way down to the very end. I have to confess that it doesn’t totally make sense to me but I liked it and I’ll most probably watch it again just to make more sense of it.

Rating: 4/5

Motorcycle Riding Dog

Driving home tonight, I saw a motorcycle riding dog perched precariously behind the rider. It’s so unbelievable it didn’t register for a full second or two. But as soon as it did, I whipped out my phone but it was already too late and he was gone. Maybe I should rig a forward-looking camera like those in police cruisers.

Pentax K100D Storage and Firmware Upgrade

Picked up a SanDisk 4GB microSDHC package to upgrade the storage capacity of my Pentax K100D. The package because contains a 4GB microSD, an SD adapter, and a USB SD reader so I figured it’s a good deal. As soon as I got home I excitedly plugged the microSD into the adapter and the adapter into the camera. Memory card error. WTH? I removed the adapter, plugged it into the reader, and plugged that into the PC. Works fine. I did a search and discovered that, as I suspected, the camera does not support SDHC! Fortunately, there is a version 1.02 firmware update that provides support for SDHC. I promptly downloaded and started the update. After a few tense minutes (there is always that risk of turning your beloved electronic gadget into a brick) the update completed. I restarted the camera and lo and behold: 1386 photos at highest resolution and best quality!