ホームメードピザ。。。最高！

出来上がったホームメードピザ！

Anyone like the font of the tag?

Nothing beats home made pizza. Using the freshest ingredients to tantalise your tastebuds! Why opt for the expensive Dominos or Pizza Hut Pizza when making it yourself is considerably cheaper, and much better tasting!

With the economy booming and people wanting moar and moar money, everythings shruken in size! I won’t factor in the fact that I’ve grown bigger but pizzas have been shrinking the past few years. Not only the box, but also the size! Not to mention, the price attempts to raise even further though we have our trust coupons to save us from such devastation!

I’ve always been yearning for home made pizza after developing a hate for Pizza Hut and Dominos Pizza. And also, eating fresh gourmet pizzas at fancy Italian Restaurants, you just want more of it! Most people avoid making pizza because of the base, which seems really had. This is only because you see the pros swirling and twirling the dough around, you know you’d fail trying to do it. I would give it a go, and fail it for the lulz.  Anyway my sister and my mum created to scrumptious pizzas for my stomach which never stops accepting food =o. The Master Chef Title is up for grabs, just name(or guess if you’re as bad as Julie) the ingredients in the first pizza (the top two photos). The winner will be the person who guesses the most number of correct ingredients or the first person to name all ingredients.Will announce the winner in my next blog post.

It’s the end of holidays, Term 3 and I am absolutely screwed for trials. Time to list out my achievements for the holidays

Time NOT wasted

Maths- I’ve done 3-4papers for each Extension 1 and 2. 2003 papers seem to be too easy for trials. Will soldier on!

English- Wrote another creative for belonging. Reworked my belonging essay using Kevin Rudd’s Sorry Day Speech. Tutor will need to fix up my Sorry Day Section.

Japanese- Going to tutoring, never a waste of time, getting tips for the scholarship interview. Reading through 五体不満足, picking up lots of vocabulary, and just general reading confidence.

Chemistry- Made notes for all sections (except for some right columns)

Scholarship Interview- Now you’re dieing for feedback on it.  But first of all, thanks for the support. First time attending an interview, wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I just opened up and blurted about my passion for learning Japanese. Other various questions. The judge from Japan asked me if I could understand Japanese. I obviously responded はい！Then she asked me to do a self introduction. So I did. Felt alright after the interview. Benson, friend from Jap tutoring had his interview before me. Seemed as though he went well.  We prepared for more in-depth Japanese questions but the simple self introduction was so anti climatic. I hope we both get in. Then we’d be partying in Japan while you all suffer in Australia.Wahaha!

UMAT Practice Exams- I’ve done TWO practice exams and a few drills since the start of the holidays. Not happy. Will have to do one tomorrow and hopefully wing it! Results of latest exam Section 1 -44 Percentile Section 2- 0-20 Percentile, Section 3 -78 Percentile (OH YEA!!). Yea I’m quite screwed, but good luck to you all, especially those taking theirs at 8am

Time Wasted

Playing DOTA (and other variants) – Too much I would be ashamed if I actually counted.

Playing MineCraft – Around 6hours in the past two days. But building awesome structures such as an inverted glass pyramid is so worth it.

Playing Blockles,Draw My thing, Letter Blox on OMGPOP. Add me on 201bk! – Fun but passes the time REALLY QUICK

Watching 10 Promises to my Dog(犬と私の10の約束)

Such a cute and sad movie. Worth my 2hours of watching.

Watching Lost Time Life

Though I thought I wouldn’t be touching Jdramas until after Trials, I couldn’t resist! I’ve watched around 5 episodes since each episode have independent stories. I think my lost time life duration would end up being around 3-4years considering how much time I’ve wasted starting into the screen I’m typing in write now.

Watching Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince + Eating at Menya with D and Quentin (because the rest of you wanted your fatty KFC!~) – Fun outing, got my copy of 五体不満足. Funny thing, three copy of the same book yet had three different prices. Anyone like to provide me a reason as to why this is the case?

Watching Master Chef- Awesome show, motivated me to become better at cooking. Will go to cooking classes after HSC. Anyone care to join?

Watching BONES-

I can’t believe I stopped watching it when it first premiered on Seven. It’s so awesome. Becoming a doctor, I want to head into forensics so I can be like Bones or Ducky from NCIS. I don’t think I’ll freak at the sight of ghastly remains. Not so scared of people stereotyping me for being weird because… I am? Watched 10 episodes in the past 2-3days. I’m so awesome at wasting time

And there you have it. Waste Time> Time Not Wasted. This is how the world should work. We’d all be happier people , live happily ever after, and die happily. Lalala. And school starts in 8hours and 48minutes. O shit.

五体不満足

Prior to meeting up with you guys to watch Harry Potter, I went up to Kunokuniya and bought myself a copy of Ototake Hirotada’s 五体不満足 (Gotaifumanzoku:No one’s perfect). I promised to buy one back here.Gotaifumanzoku was the prescribed text for HSC Japanese Extension for many years before they recently switched to Spirited Away.  Though most students doing Japanese Extension this year were probably ecstatic when they heard about Spirited Away being the prescribed (this probably boosted up the numbers in our Japanese Extension Class >_>), I wouldn’t have minded studying Gotaifumanzoku. Both texts have their own level of depth but to be reading an autobiography, is alot more powerful in my opinion. Reading about Ototake,a man without arms and legs, growing up in a society inadequate at providing assistance for his disabilities is alot more thought provoking I think.

I painfully went through the first chapter of the book (車椅子の王様）looking up every word I didn’t know, picking up alot of adverbs, kanji, but it was quite worth it. In a nutshell, Ototake was different, he had many problems but his parents were warriors, doing anything to make sure he was living normally.  To have a disabled child is devastating but to have to go through bring one up is unthinkable. I wonder if I would be strong enough to deal with it if it ever happened.

I’m probably a bit crazy, but to motivate my Japanese Learning, I want to be able to read Japanese Literature.It’ll be interesting to see what Japanese Literature has to offer. There’s nothing wrong with English books, but reading Japanese, it just sounds beautiful when read.

Watching Harry Potter in Vmax was an interesting experience (though probably not worth the extra money we paid). The movie was a let down towards the end. I thought there would be alot more action having read the book, but it was just Snape pew pewing Dumbledore and walking out of the castle. Ah well, one more Harry Potter movie to go. I have yet to finish reading the last book! I’ll get to it, having added reading the whole of Harry Potter onto my Post HSC list.

Adding Final Touches to My Food Photos

I’ve posted quite alot of photos of food in the past year. I hoped they made you hungry .

But here is the long awaited tutorial for food photography editing! Or what I do to my photos. You will require photoshop and a photo of food!

Here is our test subject. The Sweet Ginger sorbet I had at the Paradoxe Restaurant back in February.

It looks very dull compared to the final product…

This was the photo of the sorbet in my Paradoxe Restaurant post. I’ll somehow try to replicate it.

1.Levels: Image->Adjustments->Levels

Where my mouse is, is where I pulled the white triangle from the right of that line. Pull it to the black graphing area to brighten up the photo. This can be used for any photos which have been given poor lightning. You can muck around with the rest of the arrows to produce your desired result.

And the sorbet is happy bright one.

2.Saturation: Image->Adjustment->Saturation

Beware of using saturation,as oversaturation can ruin your photos! Saturation will make the colours in the food, scream?

Not much different from the previous one but you’ll see the differences in other photos.

3. Unsharpen Mask: Filter->Sharpen->Unsharpen Mask…

This is important for any food photo. Unsharpening the mask allows you to bring our the texture in the food. You’ll need to play around with the three settings, amount,radius and threshold until you reach your desired result. This step is the most tedious but when done well, makes your food stunning.

Here is the final product.

Now for a few more, to see how editing photos will change its look.

I think the duckling is the best example.

And that’s the tutorial. I hope to see some awesome food photos on your blogs in the near future.

And in other news, I got offered an interview for the Jap Scholarship. It’s next Thursday so wish me luck!

Zeni Geba

Matsuyama Kenichi as Gamagori Futaro

I told a few of you that started watching a dorama, and only a few hours ago I finished watching Zeni Geba.

Summary from DramaWiki: Gamagori Futaro has been poor since the day he was born. As a child his recklessly wasteful and abusive father sunk the family into debt and disappeared, leaving Futaro and his sick mother to fend for themselves. With no money to pay for medical treatment for his ailing mother, she eventually died. After her death Futaro became obsessed with money and willing to do anything for it. Several years pass and Futaro finds himself working at “Mikuni Shipbuilding” where he meets the company president’s daughters Midori, who was his former classmate, and her younger sister Akane, who is disabled, and like Futaro, has a scarred face. In a plot to acquire their fathers company, Futaro begins to get close the sisters…

Matsuyama Kenichi, who you may remember as L in the Death Note Live Action, plays the role of Gamagori Futaro, a boy who has grown up thinking money means happiness. Now you’re wondering, hey this drama is totally about the composition we had to write in Japanese Extension! I’m think most of us put across the idea that we don’t need money for happiness(I hope so), however the drama challenges that concept and also hits deep with the fact that humans are money driven and will do anything for it. I’ll be alluding to incidents in the drama to provoke your minds a bit

1. A man is throwing money bills from a building, and you happen to see them flying around. People around you also start to notice them, and begin to grab them, knocking others over. Do you do the same?

2. Your dieing mother requires surgery overseas but you don’t have money to fund the surgery. A rich guy pops out of nowhere and offers  you money to save your mother. You’ve always grown up with strong morals, knowing money is doesn’t mean happiness. You’re allowed to take the money on the condition you say ‘Money is the most important thing.’ Do you take it?

3. Your family has substantial debts to the Yakuza. Your family has no hope of living happily unless you pay the debt off. Do you threaten to take the life of someone unless they give you money. Do ’sell your body’ for money?

The temptation of taking the money is strong, and is exactly what the characters in the drama encounter. At these crucial moments, I want these characters to stick to their morals but they give in, which makes it tragic. The human condition! Ahhhh! But what I find more tragic about this drama is how Futaro, once was a sweet kid becomes a money driven-devil. At times during the drama, you absolutely hate Futaro and there are times you feel sympathy, as he had to grow up, fending for himself, grabbing money when he could.

If you feel like watching something thought provoking, I recommend this dorama. Grab it off me if you wanna watch.  I watched the first episode, and like most dorama do, suck you in to watch to the end. Argh! Have to wait until trials are over to watch anymore dorama.

In other news, I didn’t screw up Jap Continuers! Grats to Chris for coming first again. All I can hope for is some addition error to place me into first place. :O

Firefox and Windows Live Messenger -> Jap?

Today I was reading DC, reading the article about Fire Fox 3.5. With nothing else better to do with my time, other than completing the first aid booklet, I installed Fire Fox 3.5 in Japanese. Only thing I’ve been able to notice is the new icon, which resembles Foxkeh alot more. I should probably look into the new specs.

かわいい

And you might have noticed I also installed Windows Live Messenger in Japanese. Out of boredom once again! It’s pretty cool, whenever a contact signs in it goes [Insert Name] さんがサインインしました。 Now I’m close to matching  Ed, and his Windows 7OS in Japanese. Now all I need to do is install a Japanese OS which I wanted to a while back when I read Danny Choo’s Learning Japanese Article.

Tomorrow is the Maths Excursion. [sarcasm]YAY!![sarcasm] Miss a day of school to attend lecture about maths. Hopefully it is interesting! Probably can catch a movie afterwards if anyone is interested.

Exam marks are slowly surfacing. Only English and Mathematics Extension 1 so far. To my surprise, my English held up even though after the exam I thought I wrote a shoddy last paragraph on the loss of Hamlet. Apparently we’re getting Mathematics Extension 2 back tomorrow but I won’t have to face any dismal marks until Friday. I think I did well in both Japanese Continuers and Extension, after pissing most people off by asking loudly for moar paper. Sorry guys, we seriously don’t get enough boxed paper! I’m not so confident about chemistry, since I kinda half assed studied it this time unlike last term, when I knew everything before the exam.

Have fun tomorrow