Let's Take a Walk 2010

A couple of months ago my co-worker invited me to join in on a long distance walk. Now, never having done any sort of long distance run/walk I figured a good place to start would be a walk rather than a run. I asked about the length of the walk, and found out it was 100km. Now, since at that point I was still new to the whole notion of the "metric system" I figured, "that can't be far at all" and decided to sign up, and make the conversion from kilometers to miles at a later time.

The official name of the event is Let's Take a Walk which in retrospect is a bit arrogant, I mean to call a 100km monstrosity of a thing [which I found out to be 62 miles] a "walk" and then not only are they calling it a walk but they're addressing it like you're walking to the store, "let's take a walk" the gumption.

The Start

Before the big day I decided I would do some "training" by walking home from work, which is about 9km. I figured, I'm a reasonably in shape, I play football from time to time, I should be good right? Wrong. Way wrong.

The format was pretty simple, 100km and there'd be 10 checkpoints. Now, before the whole thing started I was told that to complete the whole race would be 30 hours, but that wouldn't be a problem because before the race even started I had decided that I would only be doing half the walk, so my real target was 50km.

Everything went smoothly for the first leg of the event, since that was similar to my walks home from work, we reached the first checkpoint and I was confident that I would see 50km through. However, soon enough I realized the breath of my ignorance regarding the metric system, walking, and proper footwear.

As you get farther and farther, red light become your enemy. Basically shortly after leaving the second checkpoint, the only thing that was keeping me going forward was physics, momentum. Having to come to a complete stop and then keep moving was ridiculously painful. I must have looked like a zombie as I trudged along the sidewalk, doing less of a walk and more of a glorified shuffle. The leg between checkpoint 2 and 3 was the longest leg of my planned walk, 15km.

Halfway through we stopped for lunch and a rest. Again, after eating my meal I could no longer feel any pain in my legs, so I gained some confidence. Confidence that came crashing down as soon as I took my first step, I was not going to make it to the 5th checkpoint.

I trudged along past the third checkpoint, which was far enough north that we could see Malaysia. Something gave during the fourth leg and at the first sight of a vacant cab, I left my walking buddy alone. He would eventually finish all 100km.

I managed to collect three sad looking stickers and although my legs healed eventually, my pride remain damaged. I plan to try this again next year, if they hold the walk, and this time see the 50km through.

The Empty Spots Mock Me

Señor Burrito

My weekly hangout spot and go-to Mexican restaurant Señor Taco recently launched a brother store, Señor Burrito. Lack of naming creativity aside, I decided to give it a try during lunchtime since it's not far away from work.

The first challenge was finding the place, it's in the basement of Raffles City Mall, and I knew it was in the basement but since it's only a stall [there's no dining area] it was kind of hard to find. Undeterred, I walked around aimlessly until I gave in and looked at the directory, which had no mention of the place. Luckily a quick google search revealed the location.

The store front is pretty simple, and reminds you of a Subway store or for me "Felipe's" back in Boston. The serve two main dishes, burritos and nachos as well as drinks, and other small things. I went with the meal combo which is a choice of burrito/nachos and chips/drink. I decided on burrito and drink and was left wondering whether anyone would ever choose the chips. The two choices of drink are frozen margarita and sangria. Sangria, for the first time in Singapore I had found an agua fresca.

The Combo

After selecting your course you are given a choice of "filling" which again is very much like a Subway order, you can choose between chicken, steak, and ground beef. Then after you choose the filling you have a choice of lettuce, onion, sour cream, hot sauce, avoacado, etc. Each burrito comes with mexican rice and refried beans.

I finished up my order and took my meal to my desk where I could evaluate it in peace. One thing that stood out while they made my burrito was the small amount of beans and rice that you get. After the girl making my burrito had applied the beans I could still see the tortilla, which isn't right at all but I tried to ignore that as I took my first bite.

Steak Burrito

Compared to other food I've had in Singapore, this burrito was a solid 9/10 and compared to burritos in general it's still a respectable 8/10. The steak was tender and flavorful, the salsas [chipotle and jalapeño] are just the right amount of spicy, not so mild that they're glorified spreads but not spicy enough that you have to run your tongue under cold water. The $2 addition of avocado, although a bit steep, was a crucial move to make. In fact the only thing that was missing in this burrito was the thing I noticed while they were making it, not enough beans. I'm not sure whether they were good or bad, salty or bland because there wasn't enough of them in there, and while there shouldn't be so much beans in a burrito that they overpower everything else, you should still be able to notice them, even if just slightly.

They Make Sangria in Singapore?

Then there was the sangria, which by existing had already thrown my expectations out the window. After tasting it, I was torn between drinking it all in one gulp because it's good, or drinking it sip by sip so it would last me the whole day because... well because it's good. Either they're making it the good ol' fashioned way or they have their hands on some really good mix. Not too sweet, not too bitter and as refreshing as I remember it being straight from our fridge. Singapore, in it's perpetual heat and humidity needs Sangria.

Overall the food at Señor Burrito is good but a pit pricey. I paid $12.50 for my burrito and sangria combo which to me is about $2.50 too much. That aside, the portions are filling, the service is pretty fast and the food was fresh. I will definitely be going back and I doubt I'll ever deviate from my steak burrito and sangria. Now, if I could just convince the owner to start making horchata.

MG RX-0 Unicorn

So, after finally finishing Fallout: New Vegas I had a chance to build the Gundam that I bought at the Anime Festival in Singapore. I spent a good chunk of my time at the festival at the Ban Dai booth trying to decine which one [I limited myself to one] model I was going to buy. I decided to stick with the Master Grade models since I still don't have an airbrush [yet] to make the Perfect Grade models worth the investment and a High Grade model feels like a downgrade.

After weighing all my options I decided to go with the RX-0 Unicorn because the box showed that it could pull off some sort of transformation and I figured it'd be like buying two gundams or at least one and a half so it'd be the best value for money.

Instruction Booklet

The build was pretty straight forward. It didn't have any extra parts other than the plastic, no string or screws or anything like that. The plastic came in more than two colors, including semi-transparent pink which the manual referred to as the "psycho frame".

Selection of Parts

The build took a bit longer than the others, mainly because  of the detailing. As I build a model I like to do the lining on the individual parts because it's easier to do than once the model is completed. However because the RX-0 transforms I wasn't too sure which parts needed to be lined and which did not.

Just Starting

In the end, I was fairly happy with the finished product. The one downside was that a lot of the lining I did do ended up rubbing off on my fingers as I was transforming it from one mode to another. I still have to get better at applying the decals because there's a couple of them that aren't straight.

Unicorn Mode

In order to transform the model from one model to another you need to remove the legs and head, this means that these parts where made to be removed and attached frequently. As a result the model doesn't feel as sturdy as the other ones, especially the legs. It's very hard to stand it up straight as it tends to sag to one side.

Destroy Mode

With all the models I've built [and the ones I will build] I think it might be time that I start watching the series or at least one of the movies.

My Desk is Getting Crowded

KOSS iSpark Earbuds

iSpark Earbuds

My iPhone earbuds have been wearing out for a while now, so a couple of months ago I decided to buy a new pair. I didn't really care whether they were the original iPhone earbuds or not, but since I do use my iPhone for listening to music a fair amount I needed earbuds that had a "clicker" that little remote bit that lets you change tracks and control the volume.

So at the headphone store during lunch, I asked to see all the earbud that had this "clicker" and after being presented with all four, I went with the KOSS iSpark Earbuds. They're black, looked simple, fairly cheap, and had the clicker, so all good. Or so I thought.

I had never heard of KOSS but my co-workers assured me that they weren't a BOSE imitation, so I was happy with that. However, after opening them up and connecting them to my iPhone I tested out the clicker, and that's where it went downhill. The KOSS remote thing didn't have volume control, which is not a big deal since the iPhone has buttons I can get at even when it's in my pocket, but the big drawback is that the clicker didn't change tracks. Apparently, the clicker was only to answer calls, so disappointed with myself for not reading boxes better I stuffed them in my desk and continued using my old iPhone earbuds.

Recently I broke the clicker on the iPhone earbuds, I think I squished them with my laptop, which meant I didn't have a reason to use them instead of the new ones. So I pulled out the iSparks [is this a valid plural? I mean a pair of headphones comes joined together so even though there's two of them, it's still one item, right?] from somewhere on my desk and decided to give them a fair chance on my commute from work.

Now, the iPhone earbuds are supposed to be in-ear [I think] but the iSparks takes in-ear to a whole other level. They have some sort of foam that you pinch closed that then expands once in your ear. So once both earbuds are in and in place they basically turn my skull into a sub-woofer with decent bass. The sounds is so good with these, that I'm discovering new sounds in songs and games I've had on my iPhone forever.

Apart from making my skull a sub-woofer and giving me better sound quality than I'm used to, because they are so fitted they essentially make me deaf to the outside world. This is especially good at drowning out laughter when I break into my impromptu in-place bachata step on the train. However, I discovered a downside to this. Have you ever seen a singer put a finger to his ear? I think it's so he can hear himself better, which might be good for singers but now I have to hear myself sing along out of tune and probably out of pitch.

Still, these are some pretty good earbuds.

Konami Code

So after seeing more and more sites add the konami code, I wanted to see how hard it would be to do the same for this blog.

After doing a bit of googling, I found out that adding the konami code to your site is a lot easier than I thought because someone has done most of the work and is hosting it on google code. This means that all I had to do is write a link to the code and define what I want the "cheat" to be.

Originally I wanted to have the "yeeeaaah" sound from CSI:Miami to play since I figured it would be helpful to have for all the bad puns I make, still missing the glasses though. Some googling led me to an awesome site developed just for this purpose. I figured I would look at their source and figure out how I could make the clip the cheat for successfully entering the konami code. Halfway through the work, however, I felt that this wouldn't be as cool as I originally thought, so I was back to the drawing board.

As I stared at my browser for inspiration I noticed my kick ass bookmarklet. Essentially, this bookmarklet makes the site your visiting a sort of asteroids game. Since it all works on javascript I figured that it would load faster and be better than playing an mp3.

In the end this little project wasn't much of a coding exercise as a copy and paste one, but oh well. Go ahead and try it out though, enter the konami code and have fun shooting your way around my blog.

In case you don't know, the konami code is:
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Enter

Tomatillos Mexican Street Food

I discovered a new Mexican restaurant through a site that catalogs new places in Singapore. Their tag line "Mexican Street Food" intrigued me and I figured who better than a Mexican to validate that claim, plus the only picture I could find of the place seemed pretty good.

Note the molcajete

So on a rainy evening after work I walked over to the place, which turns out isn't that far from where I work. Tomatillos is part of "The Foundry" which is a collection of food stalls; the stalls only sell food and they share a common sitting area. The lack of drinks was a bit disappointing since I was hoping they'd have horchata.

The menu is simple but contains all the staples; quesadillas, burritos, fajitas. I was going to get a burrito but at the last moment another item caught my eye, chimichanga. For fillings they offered chicken, beef, and pork. I wondered whether the pork meant carnitas so I gambled on the hope it would and ordered my pork chimichanga. The menu said that the chimichanga would come with guacamole, lettuce, and beans. I was happy to have found a Mexican place that finally had beans, so I sat down just a tad bit hyped about my food.

My Food Arrived

I looked at my plate with mixed reactions. I could see jalapeños, but the pork didn't look like carnitas. I figured I was expecting too much and decided to dig in and minimize my bias. After the first few bites I was a bit disappointed, and not only because I was expecting to get something different.

A Real Chimichanga

A chimichanga is supposed to be a burrito that is deep fried, just in case a regular burrito isn't fattening enough. However, what I got was a couple of deep fried tortillas with pork, beans, and guacamole on top; it felt more like a tostada although not even quite that. The beans were also a big let down, they tasted like they came from the can and they weren't mashed enough. The pork was over seasoned and overpowered everything else. The guacamole was definitely the spotlight of the dish.

I wouldn't say that the food was bad, by itself it was actually pretty good. However, given the fact that I was expecting good refried beans and a deep fried burrito I was a bit let down. If I do go back I will probably get the burrito.

Looking back I realize that the logo should have clued me to the fact that this wasn't going to be real Mexican restaurant. If you see the logo above you can notice that the chiles are wearing Chucks, a real Mexican chile would have been wearing chanclas.

That Is the Question

To be or not to be that is the question
whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
or to take arms against a sea of troubles
and by opposing end them?
To die to sleep no more,
and by a sleep to say we end...

That's all I can remember from Hamlet's famous soliloquy, a soliloquy I had to memorize my freshman year of high school for drama class. Why do I still remember even that much? Well besides being famous, I remember it because I remember it. Let me explain.

I remember memorizing it on my walk home from high school, it was an hour walk and at about the halfway point there was a pupuseria that I used to have on speed dial so I could call them ahead of time and order [dos mixtas y un jarritos de tamarindo] and have my food ready by the time I reached there. I was also thinking about the food back then when I was memorizing.

I remember I had the first... stanza? memorized by the time I got to the self-service car wash that never gave you enough time to wash anything more than a hatchback. By the time I was ready to eat my pupusas I had it all memorized and I spent the rest of the walk home rehearsing it.

As it turns out, I was the only one who memorized the damn thing because as the teacher went down the roll call [in alphabetical order] only a few students could get as far as "the question". Tired of this the teacher asked, "who actually memorized the thing?" My hand shot up enthusiastically.

I know, I know, but I was young and impressionable. What did you want me to do? I looked around to see that my hand was up alone, like that annoying hair I miss when I shave sometimes.
I took what seemed like a mile walk from my seat to the stage [didn't help that I liked sitting in the back] and as I got up to the stage one of my friends screamed "eses mijo!" My voice shook, but I cleared my throat and recited the whole thing, probably badly.

After that I would randomly tell people that I still remembered the soliloquy I had to memorize freshman year in high school, and would start reciting it but I always stopped before I finished because... reciting Shakespeare doesn't exactly make you the life of the party. But every once in a while I still try it out and see how much I remember. So you see, I remember because I remember.

I can't recall much more than what I typed at the beginning, and at this point I don't even remember what the answer to his question was. However, what does make me scratch my chin is that Hamlet decided to ask himself these questions.

I don't feel that questions get the respect they deserve. Everyone is usually only interested in the answers, myself included. But if you belief that for life the journey is way better than the destination; shouldn't you also believe that questions are better than answers? That is to say journey:questions::destination:answers. Sorry for that, I just wanted to use an analogy.

The point I'm failing to make is that we shouldn't be afraid of questions we can't answer, and we should start paying more attention to the questions we do ask because they can help us learn a lot more than the answers might. For example, if you get home from a long day of work and ask yourself "what's the weather like in Tahiti right now?" shouldn't you be paying more attention to why you would even ask such a thing, rather than the fact that currently at the time of writing it is 24 C in Tahiti?

Oh, and I have no idea who I'm talking to.