Sometimes, once in a blue moon, Ormond College manages to pull off a surprise.


But this doesn't happen often. I just have to make sure I make the most of it when it does happen. Like eat 3 lamb shanks in one go.

Lazzat, tapi, tak lazat

There's this new restaurant on Lygon Street selling Malaysian food, which has taken over Ganbaria (##*@&&! another one of my favourite restaurants has closed down!), and its called Lazzat. A play on the word 'lazat' I suppose, meaning 'delicious' in Malay, and Indonesian I suppose, but correct me if I'm wrong.

They sell your usual Nasi Campur canteen style where you get rice and choose 3 dishes , but they also sell stuff like roti canai, roti telur, and roti john, for quite a decent price ($1.50 for roti canai is Australia is a decent price).

Many people (Malaysians and Singaporeans) have been talking about it lately, saying that it was cheap and very worth the money spent. Word about food spreads faster than Road Runner being chased by Wile E Coyote.

Edit: I'm astounded. I've just been surfing random blogs and I'm surprised that other people in Melbourne whom I don't know also blogged about Lazzat.

I got a chance to sample it last week.


What do you think? Looks too similar to food in Ormond College to me. I think I'll pass. I'd rather eat at Norsiah's.

If I do go there again, it'll be for the rotis.

But then again, its quite a ways down Lygon Street. So maybe not.

Of extra scenes and the lack of knowledge about them

It seems that a lot of people who watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (including me) didn't know about the extra scene after the end of the credits. I just found out another little known fact.

The first two Pirates show had extra scenes after the end of the credits as well...

Its just that, the other 2 extra scenes didn't have any bearing on the main storyline, but the 3rd one does.

The dust has settled

And so, in the aftermath of the week that was supposed to be the mother-of-all-weeks (refer to my previous post here), I have learnt one thing:

Finales are as finales will be.

Just because its a finale doesn't mean it will go the way you want it to go. Expect too much and be prepared to be very disappointed.

I'm sure most people expected much more action from the season finale of Heroes. However, I think we must keep in mind that this is a tv show and they do not want to make it too 'X Men-ish', because that's not what it was meant to be.

That being said, I'm sure they could have done it so much better while still remaining true to their purposes. The highly anticipated showdown between Peter Petrelli and Sylar came down to Sylar choking Peter with telekinesis and Peter giving him two very fake punches. No magnificent show of powers from Peter, and I'm sure that's what everyone wanted to see. It seems that only Sylar gets to do the cool stuff (like stopping bullets and shooting them back at Parkman).

If Sylar gets to do cool stuff, they should have the good guys do cool stuff as well. Like Hiro. All he did was run straight and stab him? How uncool was that. They could have let him done one of two things. Stop time and walk calmly up to Sylar and stab him before letting time resuming its course again. Or charge at him, have Sylar try to use telekinesis, but immediately teleport and appear right in front of him and then stab.

Apart from that, I thought the ending was quite good. Resolutions to most questions and everything. And I suppose a lot of people are wondering stuff like "Why did Sylar seem so helpless at the end?" or "Why couldn't Peter fly off by himself?" but I have my own explanations for those questions which satisfies me. And I'm ok with that. If you want to know my explanations you could ask me.

The Champions League final was a disappointment. We were just not good enough. How many times have I seen Liverpool make a million half chances but can't score and have the opponent score from the one attack that they have? I have a saying that goes what you lack in skill, you make up for in passion. And on that night, we didn't have the skill, nor the passion to get back into the game once we went a goal down. As for the 2nd goal that Inzhagi scored, I think the Carragher of two years ago would have ran back and covered for the goal keeper. But I'm not faulting him. Just felt that we lacked a bit of passion in that game. We had the game plan and we stuck to it but when it didn't work we just ran out of ideas.

As for Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End, I thought that it was a decent show, although it got draggy at times, the story was quite confusing in the middle bits, the parts with multiple Jacks were just plain stupid, dumb and silly, and the action fighting bits were made very 'chaotic' as compared to the previous two, which means you cannot really see what's going on and who's fighting who (the previous two show's action scenes were actually quite clearly defined and it was fun to be able to see everything that was going on).

However, after all those gripes, I liked it. The action scene at the end coupled with a GREAT soundtrack more than made up for the slow moments in the beginning. The ending was quite good as well, although I found out that there was a scene after the credits which a lot of people missed. Movie-goers should be warned about things like these, else the whole point of putting the extra scene there would be wasted.

For those of you who have watched 1 and 2, please watch the 3rd one. Just because it got bad reviews doesn't mean its not an enjoyable show. If anything, watch it for closure. If nothing else, watch it because you are a fan.

"Take what you can, give nothing back."

I have found a new place for food! Chinese food that is, not Japanese, thus not Unagi Don :(

Anyway, its called The Forefront Eatery, situated on Franklin Street, somewhere near The Verve apartments, in between Swanston and Elizabeth Streets.


They have a lot to live up to... saying things like that haha.


Look at the size of that thing! Of course, the egg doesn't come with it, that's just an extra. People in Malaysia should look at this and weep. You don't get stuff like this there. Heh heh.

The week starting Monday the 21st of May is a highly significant week in all senses. It marks the endings of beginnings, and the beginnings

It is the beginning of my last week of classes in The Universitiy of Melbourne, literally. Come next semester, I'll be doing research for my Advanced Medical Science somewhere in Kew (which is out of the university itself) for 2 semesters until June next year, when I will commence my 2 and a half years of clinical school. So, after 5 semesters of preclinicals, today marks the beginning of an end, but this week itself is the ending of a beginning. And I have mixed emotions about these facts.

Moving on.

There are 3 other endings happening this week.

First up (in order of importance), the Champions League Final in Athens, Liverpool v AC Milan, 4.30am 24th May Melbourne time. You bet I'd be awake watching it.

Second up, Heroes season 1 finale: How to Stop an Exploding Man? The ending of a beginning. How do you stop an exploding man anyway? We'll find out.

Third and lastly, Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End premiering on the 24th of May. Oooooh.

This week, all the stars are moving into alignment. All the pieces are falling into place. All the key players are converging towards their destinies. Everything that has happened in history before, has happened just so that this week could happen. What happens after this, its anybody's guess.

"Boom."
-Sylar, on the rooftop, at the end of Heroes episode 23: Landslide

Intercollegiate Soccer Final: Ormond College vs Trinity College

And so the scene was set for the grand final on friday night 9.20 pm. After our magnificent win in the semifinals, hopes were up and expectations were high. Turnout was great as well, many more then the number who originally turned up for the semifinals.


I couldn't believe that the Trinity team turned up in LIVERPOOL'S JERSEYS! Travesty! Tarnishing Liverpool's name! No way!


Anyhow, the masses of Ormond supporters were brought harshly back to earth as soon as the game started. We were outthought, outfought, outfoxed, outwitted, outplayed, and even outsized as soon as the game began. Soon after the match began, we conceded a goal, and it was all downhill from there. With their star striker D-Rock (a goal and an assist) and their magnificent Carragher-like defender Wang (who even scored a goal), they calmly took control of the game. Sporadic incidents involving our captain Dicko and some Trinity players were the highlight of Ormond's game, one of which resulted in a yellow card for Trinity's defender Ali.

It wasn't until the 2nd half that Trinity scored their next 2 goals, and soon after that, from another incident with Dicko, their defender Ali got sent off, and it was Trinity who was outnumbered. However, even though we had a man advantage, we somehow conspired to spurn 3 chances in a row immediately after that, and sad to say, the Intercollegiate Soccer Final rapidly turned out to be what is to be known as The Friday Night Massacre.

Today is Clara's 22nd birthday and her sister held a surprise birthday party for her at Dragon Boat Palace where we had all-you-can-eat buffet steamboat. Food was so-so.


I suppose that being the surprise party that it is, she was fairly surprised to see the number of people who actually turned up. Which is a good thing. Surprises are meant to surprise people.


They don't provide those soup ladles here for us to use, and to cook the egg, I deviously devised a method which involved using a large leaf of lettuce at the bottom of the 'ladle with holes' to keep the egg in. It was a major success, and the 2 people sitting beside immediately emulated it. But it was my method.


And instead of a cake, her sister Rita got her 24 Krispy Kreme doughnuts with 22 candles on it. Not bad.


I must say she looks delighted. =)


Happy Birthday to you then.

Intercollegiate Soccer Semifinals: Ormond College v International House

This morning, Ormond well deservedly beat IH 3-2 in a topsy-turvy, see-saw match with a goal at the last minute. We were clearly the more technical team with well crafted moves and 2 star players in our captain (and left back) Dicko who led the team magnificently, and the Michael Owen-like Andy who scored the crucial 2nd goal, while IH scored their 2 goals from from 2 sublime pieces of individual skill from their striker Dil.




I think the sun got in her eyes.






Even Prof Hugh Collins, our master, turned up to watch the match at some point, before mysteriously disappearing as if he was never there.

Next match, the final, tomorrow night, against Trinity College.

Wah!










I want...

Now I generally don't like dessert, much less Ormond dessert, but this cake is so full of flavour, that it beats every other dessert that I've had in quite a while (not that I've had any for a long time)!

Meshiya

I have received an update on Don.na Mon.ya. Apparently, according to Charles (he was actually there on the last week that the restaurant was open and was even speaking to the owner, AND HE DID NOT TELL ME THAT THEY WERE CLOSING DOWN!!!!!), the owner has returned to The Land of the Rising Sun because he has a better job there.

Oh well.

=(

And so begins my quest for an Unagi Don that can equal Don.na Mon.ya's.

We shall begin with Meshiya, somewhere on Lonsdale Street, tucked in a random alley leading into QV.


As you can see, the food doesn't look too bad...

As a matter of fact, if looks were anything to go by, the place would be quite good I suppose.

However, the Unagi Don was a real let down. Maybe I just had too high expectations.


If you look closely at that picture, the first thing you'd notice is how little rice they give. Well, I suppose it was decent, but I was so disappointed that I just gobbled down the whole thing within minutes just so that I didn't need to prolong my suffering.


Engkiat ordered this as well, and it looked quite nice, but even though he was offering it for other people to try (and they did try it), I just didn't feel that it was okay to take his food. A good person does not take his friend's food. Just like he wouldn't expect his friend to take his as well.

Oh well.

Ormond Rock-Off Smoko

Smokos are generally events where people dress up according to a theme and there is a dance floor and people generally go there to drink. Judging by my description of the event, it is safe to say that smokos are generally not my thing. This is due to a few reasons:

1) I don't dress up
2) I don't dance
3) I don't drink
4) I generally don't like socialising
5) I cannot 'let myself go wild'
6) I do not camwhore (smokos are a shameless excuse for camwhoring)

Yesterday night was Ormond smoko with the theme 'Rock-off' (they hold a couple of smokos a semester with various themes). I just want to illustrate to what extent people dress up and camwhore (none of these pictures were taken by my camera).

Here we go.














And this was all BEFORE the event itself which took place in the central quadrangle of Ormond College.

Did I go to the smoko? Yes, this was my first smoko this semester, and I went mainly because this time they had live bands playing, but I got bored within 45 minutes and left after watching one band. And that was 8 dollars (that's the non-drinkers rate, if you want to drink, you pay 15 dollars) down the drain. I could buy a plate of rice and siew yuk with 8 dollars.


And I didn't bother dressing up.

And so Kalip and Lichia had their birthday dinner yesterday at Sawasdee, even though the actual dates weren't yesterday. I don't really have anything much to say about it except for the fact that the food was very tasty but very small and very expensive. A mixture of pros and cons.




One thing I really regret about the whole event is that the pictures that were taken with my camera were so much better than those taken with my K800i when viewed on the computer, but the LCD screen for the k800i displays the pictures so much better than my camera, and I got fooled (again) into thinking that the pictures from the phone are better, and I ended up taking most of the pictures with my phone. ARGH!

No more! The K800i shall only be used in good lighting conditions from now on!

Onwards.


Kalip got a new watch for his birthday, and many people wanted to take pictures with it.


The other new watch belongs to Sheik Yan, who happened to get a new watch for herself as well, which also happened to be Fossil.


















Lots of bad quality pictures up there sigh. But I should improve my tone a bit because its their birthdays and birthdays are supposed to be happy occasions =)

So, I bid them happy birthdays!

Oh woe is me!

I've had a double blow of bad news today which has left me devastated.

Firstly, I found out that my friend's family are going to Athens (Yes Athens!) to watch the Champions League Final between Liverpool and AC Milan! Well, that isn't really bad news, but I don't know whether I'll even ever have a chance to watch Liverpool play at Anfield, let alone a Champions League Final.

And the second bad news, one of my favourite restaurants has closed down. Remember Don.na Mon.ya? It was one of my four must-eat restaurants in Melbourne. The BEST (amount and quality) unagi don in Melbourne.

I actually jokingly told Jon about a week ago that we should go to this restaurant again soon, as it usually doesn't have many customers when we go there, and it'll close down pretty soon if we don't go. Now I understand the saying 'you never appreciate what you have until you lose it'. I haven't been there since the beginning of the semester and now its gone. I will not be able to tell the uncle there how much I liked his interpretation of Unagi Don. And I also wanted to try out their Katsu Don ever since I saw Christina eating one.

Thus, this post is a tribute to Don.na Mon.ya.


Replaced with this:


Green Pepper???? !&@^$!(*@$@&!#

i'M dEvAsTaTeD...