Y: the last man

What will you do if all the men in the world died suddenly except for one man? What if you are the last man alive? I think this is the question many of you girls would have thought about at some point in your life. Brian K Vaughan's graphic novel series. Y: the last man, has given some possibilities to what will happen to the world if all men died except for one.

This novel series was an impulse buy. My Kino membership discount is coming to an end, and the next renewal will cost me $15. So i decided to spend more money to get save more money (i know it doesnt sound right, but that is my logic). Anyway, bought the first 2 volumes of the graphic novel and found that they were more interesting than expected.

So anything on earth with the Y-chromosome died one fine day except for an amateur escape artist, Yorick Brown, and his monkey. He travelled everywhere in search of his mom first, then his sister, ultimately trying to find a way to Australia to find the girlfriend. The women started forming different groups trying to organise the world again, including daughters of Amazons, who burnt off one of their breasts, and tries to kill the last man alive.

Well, i will have to get the rest of the series to know what has happened and is going to happen. I am really excited about this now. Very interesting......

The Gifts and Tree

Ya.. we have a little tree at one of the corners of the house, and according to Tina, a hideous curtain that goes with the whole x-mas tree and present designs. Thanks to Tina and jeff, there are a lot more presents next to the tree. See the sock, jeff bought presents for the doggys.

Yep, both the doggys are reindeers this year.

Thanks Jeff and Tina for the gifts

X-mas EVE

Lunch

So it is the time of the year again for all the eating and drinking, and this year, Tina suggested that we do a full-day eating and drinking from lunch til dinner. So a bunch of us did. The plan was for people to start coming over to my place at about 2pm in the afternoon and we can all start cooking together the stuff we planned to do. Two rain drenched people rocked up a little late. But hey there is plenty of time for food, 2 pm til 12 am. Naturally, we started with a little chips and dips. Then for the first main, Chinese Cabbage Parcels (I made from jamie olver's recipe).

there is chicken coriander and other stuff in it. Easy to make which turned out pretty yummy.

Up next we had raw oysters we got from the fish market yesterday, then Tina did her very very spicy (literally choking) grilled prawns. Of course she blames me for telling her to put the spice on generously. But i though they were very good, i am sure alan would have loved them if he was here. Next, contributed by jeff, a abalone which he dug out from his fridge at home. Butter and peppered abalone. Well, not everyone liked it, cause it was a little chewy. But i liked it. After we finished those stuff, it was half time. And all the cooking and eating (and drinking in jeff's case) was so tiring that some people had to take a nap.

Dinner

After the afternoon nap the sleepy heads woke up and we started having dinner. I made a tuna carpaccio which looked nice, but taste..... meh. probably too much parsley in the sauce. Tracy made a great salad which i do not have pictures of, and my lamb with mint sauce, which did not turn out the way i had hoped but tasted good.

After the mains, my tummy went a little weird, probably too much food for the whole day. So the rest of them carried on with the prawns and started making desert. Jeff made his raspberry tarts and Tina her chocolate fondants.

so this is what we had for x-mas eve. i think we did pretty well.

Merry Christmas Everyone

X-mas Chocolates

Got some pretty chocolates for X-mas, and i just decided to put the mushroom and peanut ones up. They were yummy.

Dinner at the POWER house

A couple of us got invited to dinner at Carl's place last friday. And due to popular demand, Carl made his very famous greek chicken pie. There are few people in the laboratory who have had the chance to try the pie.

History of Carl's Pie

Carl baked the pie three years ago at our X-mas party at Pam's place. Everyone loved it and at least three people asked if we can take the left overs home. But there was only a quarter left and there was only one winner who took all the pie home, and she will remain annoymous. So since then we have not had a chance to have the pie again.

POWER Continued

So when Carl asked us to come over for dinner, i think someone requested that he make his pie, and so he did. So we all went on a friday evening all anticipating the fabulous pie. Other than the pie, Carl also made some very nice spicy BBQ chicken wings, lovely pesto rice, and a green salad which i could not fit in anymore after all the other food. Anyway, time to show the pie. I thought it looked really interesting close-up. So i'll show everyone a close-up of the pie. And just to clarify, the pie looks and taste heaps better, just that my phone camera sucks. here it goes

hehe.... it looks like a tummy close-up doesnt it :o)

Well, better show the whole pie now.

Yeah! that's it. the delicious Greek Chicken Pie

that is the slice i had with baked potato.

After dinner, Carl made home-made Vanilla ice-cream. Not with real vanilla pods, but a vanilla essence from mexico (suppose to be 50x stronger than normal essence), which was fantastic. Not very sweet, creamy and vanilla-y. We also had the sweets Melinda made for X-mas, blueberry truffles, white choc fudge, and others i cant remember the name of. But they were all fantastic. Dinner was excellent, thank you Carl and Melinda.

Pebble is FOUR

Pebble is getting old...

I cant believe Pebble is already four! She still behaves like a puppy, jumping, hopping ... Ahhh.... she is just too adorable. I know... i love my dog... I went to get the chicken just for her. She didnt get to finish the whole chicken, but it was just for her.

Gigantic Grapes

I went back to taiwan for a couple of days and see what i found sitting in our fridge at home. Gigantic grapes from japan. Yum. They look and taste Yum. Seedless and Juicy. Bestest ever. :o)

FABLES

I just finished all the 7 installments of the Trade Paperback of the collected fables written by Bill Willingham and penciled by a variety of artists. I would have to say this series is truly amazing (Des, you have to read this when you come back). The first book introduces some of the possible characters that escaped their world of fairy tales and folklore into our mundane world from "the Adversary", who was conquering their world. Some major characters include the big bad wolf (Bigby), Jack (.. the giant killer, of the beanstalk, ... and Jill), Snow white, Prince Charming"s" and more. The more recent issues even extended the fables to arabian and most likely, possibly asians too. In general, it talks about how they live among us and still keep it a secret. I am so looking forward to the future installments of Bill Willinghams FABLES. Of course, the art by Mark Buckingham (Generation X artist) gives the characters even more life. Hopefully, he will stay on for a lot more issues.

VAREKAI

Varekai, another one of Cirque du Soleil's performances, but not as impressive as any others i have seen. It has become a drag, watching them dance and sing for 15-20 mins, without any spectacular performance. The story is quite disjointed compare to the previous ones i have seen (Qudam and Alegria). The costumes were more extravagant and unusual and the music is still good.

We went with Brian, Tracy and Jeff. Brian and Tracy has never seen them before, but we had completely different views. Tracy loved it. Brian was trying to stay awake, hoping the next act has a tiger or a lion in it. So i guess it's 50/50. Alan, jeff and i thought it wasnt as great as the last few, but still ok. I'll probably think twice the next time i pay so much for tickets.

Des and Tam Party

Thanks to the great host, Tina, for letting us mess up her place.

We've had yet another feast.

And of course the most important people.

And the dogs that get in the way of everything

Dez and Tam are back!

Welcome back Dez and Tam. We missed you guys.

Back at kuletos

The All time favourite Espatadas at twelve

Lara can cook?

The, Lara can cook? Party

this is when it started.... when it was bright!

the soccer tourney while waiting for lara's food to cook.

Now, some starters while we wait for lara's roast and of course, Wine!

more waiting out in the back

FINALLY! After hours of cooking.....

More food! Thanks lara.... yes we all know that you can cook.

Food was lovely. I'm sure i speak for everyone.

Thanks for the "TRUE" OZ meal/ roast.

exercising after too much food and people still eating....

thanks again, lara!