want to learn but lazy to read? go to the khan academy

what started out as some tutorials for his niece, bloomed to a huge massive online repository of teaching videos.

and thus salman khan developed the khan academy.

want to learn algebra? calculus, differential equation?
don't like maths? how about humanities? banking? biology? finance? renting vs buying a home?
geometry? healthcare? medicine? history?

and so on...

damn. there's even lessons from the singapore math curriculum!

miss the classroom experience? miss being lectured?

or are you bored to death?

do pay a visit. i'll guarantee you'll find an interesting topic there to learn.

unless you are as boring as a piece of wood.

make your own ham!

one day kevin k from my audio forum posted his experience of making saucisson (large dried sausages) at home. inspired, i wished to do the same too but had problems sourcing pig intestines.

a search on youtube gave me ideas. how about this? home made cured pork loin ham

watch the video and you'll know how to make your own at home. it's really easy.

only problem is drying it. if you live in regions where humidity is low, you could dry it in open air. not here in malaysia where humidity is >80%. most likely you'll get mold on your ham. not appetizing at all...

then i got an idea. how about drying it in the refrigerator? the air in the fridge is dry and it's pretty clean inside.

so that's what i did! after salt cure for 12 hours, i cleaned them tenderloins, spiced it and hanged it on the inside of our fridge door. i was told the ham is ready when it has lost 35% of its weight. stupid me only weighed it after 10 days by which time it has lost almost half its weight.

so it's a bit dry but... still taste nice!

spiced with rosemary, oregano etc

spiced with crushed black pepper

taste wise a bit too salty but very flavourful. could be i let it cured too long. i'll try again with more experiments.  anyway, it's a lot of fun! goes very well with bread or salad!

notice that the ham is raw. well traditionally this is how ham is done and the salt cure as well as drying kills whatever bacteria is present and allows the flavours to develop slowly.

i'll try this again! will also try the saucisson one day!

real men shave with this...

earlier this year, i've been converted to wet shaving using a double edge safety razor like this merkur 23c above. and i should have done this sooner!

for the past almost twenty years, been using the disposable razor cartridge types like gillette mach3 etc. now these fellas aren't very sharp. you need to force down the razor to get a clean shave. also, the disposable razor cartridge is very expensive. rm30+ buys a pack of 5, so that's rm5+ for a disposable plastic contraption with 2 extremely thin and tiny blunt blades. damn...

i don't have much luck with electric shavers. couldn't get a clean shave. sometimes it "pulls" the skin resulting in bruises, like i got whack by my wife.

hmm... hairy experience while trying to get rid of hair?

as always, history could tell us a lot. what have our forefathers been using before all these modern junk?

a double edge safety razor like the one above! purist will go for straight razors but these aren't easy to use (i know, i speak from experience. ouch!).

but where to buy one? i searched high and low, asked around, checked here and there, poked my nose around but to no avail. actually i did manage to get some cheap china made ones but these are so flimsy i'd pass...

so i bought this razor from ebay after exhausing all avenues here. [but there's good news later]

it cost me rm150++. well, this includes stupid freight from US of A. but this stainless steel contraption should last forever. hey, it's made of 3 pieces and it doesn't look like anything could go wrong! unless you are daft and use it to hammer nails...

to complete the whole experience, i fabricated this little teak wood stand for my razor as well as shaving brush.

curiously, it's easy to get shaving cream. you could get it from the bigger tesco outlets as well as local mydin malls.

so how's wet shaving with the double edge safety razor?

it's awesome! the razor blades are very cheap (how about rm4 for 5? some go for rm15 for 100!) and some makes are very very sharp. i like the gillette wilkinson sword best.

it's different from using those plastic disposable rubbish. you got to relearn your technique. just lightly glide it over your skin at an angle. what angle? you'll get the hang of it real quick! and it's soooooo easy to clean!

aren't  you worry of cuts? nicks?  i know you must be thinking of this. actually i find it to be very safe, as long as you hold it at an angle.

in fact, i like wet shaving so much i'm actively promoting it! however, most friends are scared of cuts. sissy! see, all those metro sexual shit is getting to you!

so this will be my mantra for now. real men shave with proper razors! not those plastic disposable nonsense!

and to further promote wet shaving, i've asked dovo (maker of above merkur razor) for distributorship of merkur razors in malaysia. in fact, i've placed an order...

how about straight razors?

not for me! for now!

this takes skill. i tried and suffered some cuts. but i'm sure i'll graduate to straight razor one day...

for now, safety razor will do. again, REAL MEN USE PROPER RAZOR!

roomba red battery woes

we have been using a roomba red for a few years now. back then, there was only the red and a scheduler. nowadays the red could be considered a dinosaur.

this little fella makes your life a lot more convenient. sure, cleaning the floor doesn't take much time but one could easily be short of time especially on busy days. this little fella, has all the time in the world. so why not use his time rather than your time to clean up the place?

especially now that we have tonto, having roomba clean up all the hair this fella sheds is really awesome. we appreciate having a roomba more than ever!

and the roomba red is pretty tough. been running fine for at least 5 years now, except for... its batteries. its batteries suck! big time! have replaced them twice and a replacement battery cost rm350 here. YES! RM350! SCREW ME!!!

despite paying so much for the replacement battery, it's not very comforting to know that the warranty for the replacement battery is only 1 month (and they only tell you AFTER you paid for it). what? is that a harbinger of impending doom?

true enough, few months later, the replacement battery gave up as well.

well, i had enough! i searched around and found that there are folks who reconstruct the batteries themselves. this i got to try!

the worst part was prying open the battery cover. damn, it uses some special triangle screws. damn, the cover is glued.

fortunately you could get this special screw driver from jalan pasar. a bit more work later (and some scratches on the battery), managed to remove the cover. i already know what's inside. it's just 12 C size batteries in series.

now C batteries aren't common here. a pair cost rm50. we need 6 pairs, so this isn't cost effective. worse still, the batts are spot welded, 12 in series. damn.

then i got an idea! why not just replace the C batts with something that's more common here?

and that's what i did! bought AA size holders which house 4 in a pack. so some panasonic hermatite batts too. 3 holders is needed for 12 batts. secured them back, soldered the connections and...

our roomba is working again! and the 12 AA batts only cost rm150. best part is, you could replace them any time you want as these are cheap and common.

easy!

a stack of wood plus some elbow grease gives me...

... quite a lot!

i bought some salvaged timber strips, or known as "kok chai" in cantonese, some months back for some home improvement project. gabriel introduced these timber strips to me and i have lots of fun with them. for a half baked, low skilled nitwit wood worker like me, the flexible kok chai can be used to build just about anything.  have built quite a lot from just a stack of these strips. they are usually sold in bundles of 120 ft, or 10 pieces of 12 ft strips. cost? less than rm50 for such a bundle!

besides, i find wood working to be therapeutic. it is so calming to work with our bare hands. fyi, everything i built here is accomplished with hand tools only. a band saw, wood glue, screws, wood brackets and some clamps.



first thing i built, is this "creeper's aid". the base though is not made from timber strips but rather some bed frame someone in my neighbourhood threw away! yes, during my walks with tonto, we scour around the neighbourhood for rubbish. as the saying goes, one man's rubbish is another's gold.

this fella stands at 6 ft tall but unfortunately the plant is taking so slow to grow. hmm...

also built this compost rack. i'm tired of hearing the excuse of "not enough space" to compost. how about 3" by 1"? this is all the space taken up by our compost rack.

 

 but the most fun i have, is building this food dehydrator. a year ago, i blogged about making your own food dehydrator. well, that crude thing consists of 4 pieces of wooden plank (salvaged from the neighbourhood) and some L brackets.

since we use this quite often, that ugly piece got to be retired. and so i built this fella. since it is only oiled, you could see the timber strips clearly.

 

at the lower end, a 100w incandescent light bulb is used to provide heat. 

  

in case you are wondering,  a 100w light bulb manages to heat up the upper rack all the way till 50 degrees celcius. just nice for a slow dehydration.
the thermometer is a roast meat thermometer. excellent for this purpose here!
oh yeah, among my wood working tools, i could print some letters too. nice eh?

 on the left, drying some pig ears here. tonto absolutely loves this!
 on the right, drying some tomatoes. there's 7 tomatoes here. 8 hours give us some wonderful semi dried tomatoes.

so with some elbow grease, you could accomplish all this from just a bundle of timber strips of less than rm50!

best of all, these are all YOUR handiwork. there's no commercial stuff like this!