Pasta La Pizza, Baby!

That's to corrupt Arnie's phrase in Terminator 2 with some corrupt Italian of the same... hehe

Well, I have to write this, becos I had the best pizza in my entire mediocre life on monday! Service is pretty typical of all italian restaurants. They leave you alone till you are ready.

The serving of Sambvca was generous, the coffee beans offered was generous, I mean. An entire saucer of it! The menu was totally unnecessary, as I never liked the idea of letting the restaurants dictate my choice of food. And true enough, as with most italian restaurants, I was able to have my way.

The insalata(salad) was Caprese. That's all I want for salad man! Not some greens and reds and yellows tossed in balsamic vinegar... I have that when I have my other cuisines, not Italian! The tomatoes were sweet and succulent. Mozarella was chewy and the basil... simply aromatic, lah!

Then suddenly, my mate Liow and I, realised that we lacked bread. Ask and you will receive, JC said. Lo and behold, bread, balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil appeared within the minute! While we were savouring the bread with oil and vinegar, there was time to survey the surroundings.

Right in front of me was the most beautiful pizza oven i have ever seen! Hahaha... The picture will tell you why.


The Osso Buco was beyond description! Osso buco is a regional dish from Piedmont, I was told. Osso buco translates literally to "bone hole", a reference to the marrow which gives the dish its distinctive flavour and body. Traditionally, a veal shank is used in this dish. Other staples include white wine, broth or stock, and aromatics. And ours was served with risotto, rice lah!

Pizza? Cant really call it a pizza, becos there is no way we could eat it like pizza. There is the pizza base, ok, 8 inch and all. Generous spread of rocket, then topped with huge shavings of PARMA HAM, WOOHOO~. I hate rocket! Bitter and taste like burnt rubber! EEEEWWW... but had to eat it anyway. It was there right?

So we proceeded to disect the 'pizza'. Take some ham, take some rocket(eeww), then take a slice of pizza base. Try putting the stuff back onto the pizza, and savour the flavor of parma ham. The experience was simply heaven...(so long as we try to forget the rocket)

So, we came, we ate, and we left, after a good 2 hours.

Divine...guess I was a Franco-italian in my previous life...

Somalia Defeats Rwanda To Win Third-World Cup

KHARTOUM, SUDAN—The host city of the 2006 Developing Nations Football Championship erupted in cheers that nearly drowned out the cries of the starving and wounded Tuesday when the underdog Somali side, playing four down due to injuries and landmines, outlasted the more experienced if disease-ridden Rwandans 1-0 to win the inaugural Third-World Cup.


"This is a relatively great day for Somalia," said team captain Omar Bin-Shakur, the seasoned veteran whose rise from squalor in the violent ghettoes of Mogadishu to stardom in the squalid and violent ghettoes of the Sudan is already passing into legend. "It seemed like nothing could stop us in the title match—not the great Rwandan defender Bimenyimana, not the mortar strikes, not the rotting cow in midfield, not dysentery…nothing."

"They were simply the better team today," Rwandan star Calvin Bimenyimana said, speaking to reporters as the soccer stadium was transformed from a football pitch back to its usual function as an outdoor prison for Darfur refugees awaiting execution. "Yet I am extremely proud of my mates. They did well just to get here, especially after the Sierra Leone match in which Nicodemus was red-carded and shot, and our epic battle with Chad, in which they came at us with rocket-propelled grenades when our team bus attempted to cross the border into the Sudan."

Bimenyimana, whose youth coaches in Rwanda considered him a natural for the sport after his hands were chopped off with machetes in 1994, was chosen as the Nestlé Man Of The Match by fans, the first-ever Third-World Cup participant from the losing side to be chosen. However, some aficionados say that Bimenyimana played a lackluster game; at press time, FIFA-3 officials were investigating reports that armed gunmen had shot and killed hundreds at designated Nestlé Man Of The Match voting stations.

Somalia was only a fifth seed entering the Cup tournament, and while the Third-World Cup rankings are considered notoriously inaccurate, the nation's weak midfield, inexperienced goalkeeper, and devastatingly low rates of economic growth and standards of press freedom seemed to indicate that they would be eliminated in the early rounds.

"Certainly it did not look good for us going in to be placed with Afghanistan, host team Sudan, and the [Democratic Republic Of The] Congo," said Somali coach Abdi Qani. "But every other team was at the mercy of the same sporting and economic factors. In the Third-World Cup, every group is the Group Of Death."

After only surviving the first round due to inspired play, UN-supplied antibiotics, and a forfeit during the Sudan game when four Sudanese players seized control of their team and shot eight others during penalty time, Somalia assumed the unexpected status of the tournament's Team Of Destiny.

"Never have the words 'win or go home' provided such inspiration to any team," Bin-Shakur said. "I am overcome with joy, as well as hunger, and I look forward to bringing the Third-World Cup trophy home to my country."

The Third-World Cup trophy, an AK-47 coated with gold spray-paint and mounted on a pallet of United Nations staple foods, has already been seized by Somali troops and distributed amongst ranking military officers.

Articles Courtesy The Onion

Still on Flavoured stamps

Now let's push the envelope a little further...

How about us petitioning to Castro, that he issue some nice Cuba stamps made of tobacco leaves? That will give us CIGAR STAMPS. That will be a hit, and will only be made available to adults over the age of 18. And the receiver... if he/she ever DO RECEIVE the letters with the CIGAR STAMPs, must ALSO be over 18.

Hmm... perhaps Colombia could follow suit with some marijuana stamps?

Korean Emperor in Changum unveiled!

Being the curious me, I have never once stopped questioning WHO the HECK is this Emperor of Korea? Finally, from browsing some glossy shite of a chinese mag, I managed to find out that the Emperor is in fact Jungjong, or 中宗皇帝.

Did a wiki, and prolly there are people like me, curious...

Jungjong of Joseon (1488–1544, r.1506–1544) ruled during the 16th century in what is now Korea. He succeeded his half-brother, Yeonsangun, because of the latter's misrule, which culminated in a coup placing Jungjong on the throne.

Jungjong was clearly a generous, good and able administrator. However, his reign was mostly marked by political confusion created by the many corrupt officials, and the failure of his reforms. His policy had always faced opposition from his council members; and unlike his predecessors, he did not have much power to appoint his court officials because true power rested with the leaders of the 1506 coup that placed him in power, and later the queens' family members. He didn't accomplish much during his reign, but it was a very calm era compared to that of Yeonsangun.

Jungjong is also well known for appointing Jang Geum as one of his personal doctors. Never in Korean history had a woman become a royal physician. It is also worth noting that since Jungjong's reign, Korea has never had a female royal or presidential physician, even to this day.

Article extracted from Wikipedia. For full writeup, click here

Haagen-Dazs Flavored Stamps

As part of their "Let Your Tongue Travel" campaign, ice-cream maker Haagen-Dazs and Austrian Postal Service teamed up to launched a series of ice-cream flavored stamps. They infuse flavors like Cookies & Cream, Macadamia Nut Brittle and Strawberry Cheesecake into the adhesive on the back. As you lick the stamp, you actually taste the flavor! For every 10 scoops of ice cream purchased, a book of stamps is distributed.

Yummy...I gotta let Singpost know, so we can have durian flavoured stamps...

For thos lifelong English fans out there who missed it...

...this is the pathetic penalty shootout 2 nights ago.



In all truth and reality, England deserved to go home. Football is a very simple game, with complicated rules, of course. You start with eleven men(who behave like boys). You play on a field, with another eleven man-boys. There is a minder to keep things cool, boy , was it hot out there! There is this round thing we call the ball, and you kick it with your foot. Hence the terminology, football. Why the yanks call it 'Soccer', is another matter altogether.

What the team must try to do, is to put the 'football', into the net(goal) of the the opposing side. The goal is guarded by an opposing player, called the goalkeeper, who will try all he can to stop you. He is the only one who can use his hands, becos he cant lift his legs above his head to save those high balls.

Simple? Surely so. But England failed to put that cute little ball into the net of Portugal. When you don't score, you dont win. Losing Beckham is no excuse. England lost Bryan Robson in 86, and did pretty fine too. They were simply not good enough. Otherwise, there will be no need for foreign imports to the EPL.

Why our poor England FAILED to progress did not come as a surprise to me at all. From the list of 23, England had 4 'Strikers' among them. Strikers are players who are supposedly better trained with putting the ball into the goal.

From this list of four, we have, in terms of lethality( my personal opinion):-
1. Michael Owen, best of the lot, vast experience, lightning pace, good scoring ratio;
Performance : passenger most of the time, seems preocupied most of the time with other
matters. Home after 4 games, out for 4 months injured.

2. Wayne Rooney, supposedly the best, but for his broken metarsarsals. Superb in every sense.
Performance : Got better with every game, till his temper got the better of him. Grow up, little boxer...

3. Theo Walcott, hmm... who the f**k is Theo Walcott...supposedly the best young talent for the future. Shld've have kept him for the future then...
Performance : Did well, walking in and out of the tunnel onto the bench for all matches, never once missed a sitter( hahaha)

4. Peter Crouch, the 2 meter tower of London. Scorer of goals against weaker opponents.
Performance, yes... scored against weaker opponents. Else, squanderer of opportunities galore. He is worse than Theo Walcott, becos by being on the field, he wasted one space for another reasonably good player. By being in the penalty box and falling awkwardly all the time, he makes England the laughing stock.

I can almost hear Darren Bent and Jermain Defoe laughing and rolling on the floor, when England crashed out. They were mercilessly left out. Had SG Eriksson remained in charge, I bet Defoe would retire from international football.

Let's hope things can get better, let's hope...