Blog

  • The Good Stuff

    December 23, 2004

    Pu Erh Tea Dad brought some special tea, called Pu Erh Tea. It’s fermented, aged and compressed into a cake that you have to pick apart yourself.

    Pu Erh Tea BoxPu Erh Tea CakeYou can see the shrink-wrapped brick in the red box (Dad says it just says Pu Erh Tea). It takes quite a bit of effort to scrape the leaves off the main brick enough so that it can actually be brewed. Since we were splitting this brick between my sister and myself, it was necessary to crack it in half.

    Pu Erh Tea CupThe tea itself is a mild, red tea that has a kind of earthy taste. Not as strongly flavored as black or green tea, it’s sort of faintly fragrant. The Wiki article says that there’s mold that forms on the compressed cake as it ages that contributes to the earthy flavor. Sort of like cheese, I suppose.

    Some of the fancier cakes have shapes embossed in them.

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    DSri Seah
  • Retail Greetings

    December 22, 2004

    Yes, literally retail greetings. I guess it’s a crazy time of year for mall employees, but it still irks me when I go up to, say, the Cinnabon counter, and get nothing but a disassociated stare in return. A “Hi! How Can I Help You?” would be nice, even expected. Thinking it was me, I’ve been adjusting my approach to be a touch more benevolent, even jolly. Not much effect.

    I wonder if I’m getting profiled: Large, puffy asian man with bad hair. Demanding demeanor. Probably an asshole who’s going to give me a hard time about there not being enough cinnamon on his f**ing bun and try to get a discount, because his bitchy wife and kids emasculate him at home. *Shields Up! Or maybe they’re just poorly trained, or tired. But the person in front of me in line seems to get the standard how-de-do.

    Maybe I’m imagining it, but next time I’m out, I’ll have to try some different warm-up routines. Use different eye contact. Or wear a shirt with a collar.

    Or maybe ignore their lack of retail salesmanship and get on with my life. :-)

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    DSri Seah
  • Soup is Good Food

    December 21, 2004

    I have a toothache, which has done wonders to surpress my apetite. Having not slept well for several days due to the throbbing pain, I have resorted to gumming my food on the right side of my mouth and avoiding all things that fall outside of “tepid” in terms of temperature.

    However, today I had a culinary breakthrough: Campbell’s Southwestern Chicken Verde Soup + White Bread = Toothache Friendly Fare. It’s sort of like Chicken A La King over bread. Nice and soft. Slurpable. Spicy enough, with small bits of chicken that are easily swallowed. I’m sure this will work with the other fine Campbell’s cream-based soups. I think the Chicken Verde is a bit too strong by itself, but on white bread it’s better. On toast it would probably be pretty good too.

    I’ve got a dentist appointment later today, so I’ll be back to solid foods soon. But just in case, I’m slow cooking a beef roast in the crock pot at this very moment.

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    DSri Seah
  • 3D Hard Output for Cheap

    December 19, 2004

    Visit Site Create your own 3D paper sculptures from common 3D formats! Pepakura Designer allows you to import a 3D model from a program like 3D Studio Max and create a paper version of it that you can cut and glue together. I’m not sure how involved it is, but it looks pretty cool. It’s shareware, costing $38 online via the site. The galleries feature robots, planes, spaceships, people, and abstract shapes. One guy created paper versions of rally cars…you can even download PDFs from his site to print and construct your own. Via BoingBoing.
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    DSri Seah
  • Advanced Lighting

    December 19, 2004

    Global Illumination and High Dynamic Range Images: two keys to getting more photorealistic (or just plain better) images out of your computer. Global Illumination applies more to 3D rendering, whereas High Dynamic Range Images are applicable also to digital photography. I was just talking to Duncan about this. IDFuel has a brief outliner about these tools and where to get them.

    Check out the links to Paul Debevec’s site for more information and some samples of interesting uses of captured light fields. Using sampled lighting instead of synthesized light results in more realistic rendering…it’s the kind of subtlety that you wouldn’t know to look for unless you already value nuances in color and shadow.

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    DSri Seah