Here are some pictures that I find hilarious, taken from various sources around the internet. If you've seen them before or think they are lame, please tell me, and I'll try to convince you otherwise.

First off, I'm fairly certain that most people have seen these pictures before:




Tee hee.

And next, I'm sure you all remember the movie Snakes on a Plane? Starring Samuel L. Jackson? This one?


Well, here are the spin-offs.






Pictures courtesy of Uncyclopedia. Thank you for your time.

So I had the first of my three GP visits today, and I have to say that it was ... not bad. Not bad at all.

Initially I was looking towards this day with dread. I was fearing an extremely strict doctor who would stand beside me forcing me to go through all my physical examinations from year 1 till now and criticising me when I get things wrong. I was fearing the extremely long journey and that it would be very difficult to get there. I was fearing attending the visit with a coursemate with whom I've seen, but never spoken to before. I was fearing not being able to survive a day of 9 to 5 in the clinic, being the lazy person that I am. I was fearing of being forced to interview a patient and getting stuck with no idea what to say.

And I'm glad to declare that none of the things of which I feared came to pass.

The doctor was extremely friendly with no expectations of us at all, putting us at ease by asking us to just enjoy ourselves, saying we were free to come and leave as we like.

And apparently I'm the first person ever to get to the clinical placement on time. So proud. I got there at 8.58 am. Sometimes, I can't help being punctual. Even when I have no idea how long it would take me to get there.

There were no physical examinations that I had to do. Which was good. And not good. Cos eventually we still need to know it for the final examinations, and this would have been a good practise.

Surprised myself for being able to talk quite a bit with my coursemate. I suppose all people are easy to talk to, as long as you try. Either that or when you're stuck together you absolutely have to say something to the other person or it'd be very awkward. Whichever it was, I still think it went off quite well. Don't know what she feels though. I certainly didn't feel awkward.

It wasn't quite 9 till 5 in the end, more like 9 till 4 plus. With a tea and lunch break in the middle. Not too bad, but my shoulders were getting a bit stiff from sitting down for too long.

Interview was fine, interviewed a patient each, and real patients are much easier to talk to than fake patients.

So, all in all, not bad.

One down, two more to go.

Yesterday night was the most exciting Friday night that I have experienced in a long while. I know other people may have different opinions but I thoroughly, genuinely enjoyed myself.

Usually, Friday nights would see me going to the internet cafe to play DotA and I'll come home after 12 and that will be that. Yesterday night, was the Melbourne University Overseas Student Service (MUOSS) Night Market. Basically pasar malam lah. And pasar malam means food.

So there I was at 6.40pm, getting ready to leave my room, when it RAINED. Heavily. But that's a GOOD thing because Melbourne has been experiencing a drought for ages. Any longer without rain and pretty soon we won't even be able to bathe.

Thus I grabbed my umbrella and trod down to uni, evading puddles of water on the way there.

It was difficult taking pictures in the rain though. Hmm.


Hungry? Or course.


That's not the CCS (Chinese Cultural Society) stall though. Ramli wannabes. But not bad. I had 2 of those burgers.


The Malaysians of Melbourne University (MoMU) had a stall there as well. And they were selling Roti John and Teh Tarik. Sad to say, I'm not in the club. But the food was good.












So finally we left the night market, and proceeded back to Ormond.

Jon and I wanted to play a game of DotA before attending Movie Night in the Junior Common Room (JCR) in Ormond. However, at about 10 pm, Melbourne was suddenly plunged into a city wide blackout.


Heh.

Let's try it again.


Well then, a premature end to my night. Not for my friends though. They, went down to Lygon Street for shisha.

Used my phone camera quite a bit these days to take pictures. Some good, some not so good.

Last year, I had a neighbour who loves techno/trance music and has some super speakers, which irritated the hell out of me. For the whole year, I had to suffer her music, day and night. It was most especially irritating when I was doing some reading peacefully and then hearing the beginnings of music which I know will not end until I called her to turn it down or something.

This year, my new neighbour isn't as bad. But she tends to have parties quite often. And by parties I mean she invites people over to chat and have a drink and there's music as well. :( This isn't too bad as it doesn't happen in the mornings or afternoons, but when it happens just when you need the peace then its bad.

However, this year, I have my own defensive mechanism.


Sony Ericsson Walkman Earphones with noise cancelling function. Cancels about 75% of the noise which is good enough for me. Took a while to get used to but once I did, its awesome. Its detachable so I can just use it without putting any music on. When I do put the music on, I usually can't hear anything anyone is saying.

"What?? I can't hear you!"

There's a new Japanese restaurant near uni. This is a good thing because for us people who sometimes want something better than college food but cannot be bothered to walk far.


Sushi Sai, located on the corner of Swanston and Elgin. Apparently before this it was a cafe selling you basic australia fare of coffee and pastries. I've walked past the shop a lot of times before but it was always unassuming and never really that appealing. I wonder how this new Jap place will fare.


They serve the usual dons, and sushi rolls as well. The food isn't really that spectacular but its filling, with adequate amounts of meat and rice, which is the most important, and its not bad either. And that's good.


$7.60. Adequately priced as well. ;p

Okay, enough about the restaurant.

This morning there were some hot air balloons hovering above me while I was walking to class.


However, somehow, I feel that that picture could have turned out so much better.

...


I don't this one turned out too badly. Hmm.

There were 2 reasons to go out for dinner on Monday:
1) Ormond was serving Sweet Chilli Beef with Hokkien Noodles. From my years of experience here, this is nowhere near Hokkien Noodles.
2) We had our first mid semester test on Monday, thus, a celebration was in order.

Dinner was at Stalactites, apparent The Best Greek Restaurant in Melbourne (I may be wrong though). I've been here for 2 years and a bit and I've walked past this restaurant countless times but I have not ever been inside. I guess I'd rather pay for Chinese food heh. Anyhow, this is my first time to Stalactites.


Located on the corner of Lonsdale Street and Russell Street, a good location I must say, as both are busy streets.


The interior of the restaurant is a cozy little place with ceilings that actually have some form of stalactites. Not bad.




The three of us shared a Mixed Giro and a Greek Salad plus some pita bread and dips as side orders.

Who are the three of us, you might ask?

We went to the Moomba Festival on Saturday night. 'We' being Eileen, Janice, Jon, Alex, and me. The Moomba Festival is a fun fair festival of sorts, where they set up food stalls and game stalls; during the day they have some water events, and at night, fireworks.




One thing I don't like about food in Melbourne is that there is very little difference in price between a main meal and a snack. Like I've said before, an average meal in melbourne is about 8 dollars. The hotdogs sold at the above store costs 6 dollars. I'd rather eat a meal.

It was actually my second time there, the first was 2 years ago, when I was new to Melbourne, and was jumping at every opportunity to have a chance to go out and explore Melbourne. Sadly, I've lost that enthusiasm.

Honestly, I don't really care for fireworks. But this was an opportunity to get some pictures. However, after some time, I realised that taking pictures of fireworks with a camera phone instead of a kick-ass camera, is more a matter of luck than skill. And even with luck, I could still only come up with some truly mediocre pictures.


In the end, I gave up, and decided to take a picture of other people who were trying to take pictures of the fireworks with their camera phones.


So many idiots. To think that I was one of them. -_-

Finally, I've got the final pictures required for this post.

For someone who likes food as much as I do, I can get quite picky sometimes. What I'm looking for is food in large quantities, with a significant amount of meat. Heh. I'm looking for something that's worth what I pay for, so I don't mind paying slightly more if I get more and better quality food. ;p

So, when it comes to eating in Melbourne, for me, there are only 4 'must-eat' places. Maybe 5, since I've recently discovered a new one, but that's a story for another time.

These are the places I frequent when I dislike the food being served in Ormond, when I want to celebrate someone's birthday, or just for an eat-out sessions with my friends.

Here goes.


Norsiah's Kitchen. On Swanston Street near the university. A place for good and cheap Malay food. This place isn't suitable for any celebrations or events though.


Simple Malay fare. Only $6.50 for 2 meats and 1 vege dish. Very very cheap comparably.

Next up.


Don.ya Mon.ya. Located up Bourke Street. Was introduced to this place by my friends about a year back, and have been hooked ever since. Been here about 7 times, maybe more, and I've only ever eaten one dish, the same over and over again:


This place serves the BEST Unagi Don I have EVER eaten. Best because it gives the most eel compared to any other Unagi Don in Melbourne in a relatively comparable restaurant.

Its $22.00 (that's actually quite expensive for a normal meal) for the set which comes with the bowl of Unagi Don, 3 slices of Beef Tataki (raw beef) in a salad, one dimsum-like thingy, some pickled vegetables, 3 pieces of Takoyaki (octopus balls), and a square slab of tofu. Its $12.00 for the Unagi Don by itself, and about $8.00 (that's the normal price for an average meal in Melbourne) for non-Unagi dishes (because eel is more expensive).

I've posted the next 2 pictures before, but if you haven't seen it before, here it is, and this time, I didn't bother to erase my friend's face from the picture. Serves him right for getting in my way. ;p


Blue Sky in Chinatown. Good place for people who likes plenty of rice and plenty of meat. Plenty of dishes worth eating here, but I've only got the picture for one.


$8.90. Average price.

Finally, the last one.


Located on Lygon Street, this Vietnamese restaurant serves your usual Vietnamese fare of Beef Noodle Soup. But when I do go to this place, there're only 2 dishes that I will eat, both involving grilled chicken, and neither of them the Beef Noodle Soup.


Vermicelli is some meehoon-like noodles, but apparently its not exactly meehoon. You can't see it in the picture, its covered up. $10.90.


This is the rice version of the same dish. Its $12.90 because the white rice is substituted with red rice (tomato rice I suppose).

Slightly more expensive than your average fare, but because its located on Lygon Street, its more expensive.

I'm glad to say, that having come back here for 5 weeks already, I've already been to each of the restaurants above, and one of them twice. :)

Did you know, that soymilk and a banana makes for an awesome supper combination?


Best.

Liverpool beat Barcelona today. What a difference a week makes in the world of football. Last Saturday, it was the horrendous defeat against Man U, now a win against Barca.




Pictures taken from Soccernet.
Very best.

And a funny line from one of the newspaper reports on the match:

"As the home players celebrated the final whistle and their place in the quarter-finals, Craig Bellamy made his most decisive move of the night.
He persuaded Ronaldinho to swap shirts; probably an extra large judging by those recent photographs of the once-brilliant Brazilian."

Tee Hee.