Living a digital life...

So I've been trying to live a paperless, digital life as much as possible.  Why?  Because filing and sorting is much better assisted by a search engine, and because spending a lot of my life online has made me spoiled to not wanting to flick through paper, punch holes and physically file.  And also because spending my time across multiple countries that tend to be across oceans from each other requires facilities not tied to any one physical location.

It's possible, and much aided/enabled by the following which I have obtained/signed up for:

• A Fujitsu Scan Snap duplex, high speed paper scanner
• An Evernote Premium account
• A Livescribe Echo Smartpen
• CutePDF - a free print-to-PDF freeware that can be downloaded/referenced from the link to this blog post.
• Online shopping, bank statements and bills
• An Amazon Kindle

There are still several routes paper takes to get completely digital though...  And despite my best efforts, an entire cupboard of paper in files have not been completely eliminated.  They however have been drastically reduced to one single hanging file folder/cabinet with less than 7 compartments.

1. Paper > Digital. Use for bills that still come in the mail despite one's best online shopping and bank statement efforts.  Scan into Evernote via Scansnap, discard the ones that you don't need to keep on paper for whatever reasons, file on hanging files the ones that do.
2. Potential Paper > Digital Formats. Use for magazines and newspapers that have digital formats, or sometimes for procured/given paper magazines that you want to retain for future reference.  Slice/tear out the paper pages for retention, scan into Evernote via Scansnap, discard paper copy.  Refer to free/small subscription fee online versions of magazines and newspapers for the rest.
3. Recipe Books > Digital.  I still keep some large, printed, show-case type recipe books (that I don't actually use, but keep for display purposes on the kitchen shelf).  These days my hand-written recipe book is being converted into Livescribe format (through a dedicated Livescribe notebook for recipes) so they are searchable and retained for all perpetuity online.  Or I simply search for what I want to cook on the Internet and end up finding something viable anyway (and that's when I try it, find it great, make some modifications and add to my recipe book for future use).
4. Receipts > Digital.  If/when it shows up on my credit card statement, I throw the receipts away.  Actually, sometimes I just throw the receipts away, and haven't been wrongly charged for an item ever in the last... actually, however many years I've ever had a credit card.
5. Cash > Digital.  Use credit cards (statements = free tracking method) instead of cash, retaining cash in as small bills as possible for tips, bouncers and other cash-only dodgy venues.  Oh, and I chuck coins in handfuls frequently into the jars for tips at coffee places and delis, and foreign currencies into the donation bins at airports.
6. Digital stays Digital. Use for online shopping mostly, and email/social network correspondences, mobile phone calls made on lines paid for by online bills.  Shopping online instead of at physical stores not only save you receiving a paper receipt, it also saves you petrol money travelling to the shop, energy carrying heavy items back home and usually comes with free shipping past certain amounts.  I've given up the rather Asian habit of wanting to hand-pick every single item I purchase so the wrapping is pristine and never taking the top item off the shelf, in favour of saving the travel time and energy carrying heavy items.  Once digital, it stays digital.  Online shopping receipts are printed into PDFs and deleted when goods are delivered and the charges show up on the credit card.  It is a good mechanism of tracking multiple online orders as well, since I tend to shop once a month and buy from multiple online stores at a go.  Right now the only places I go to physically are the local deli's, coffee places and supermarkets, and with supermarkets, I may one day soon cross the digital frontier and do online grocery shopping on AmazonFresh, having got good feedback and my district happens to be in their limited distribution network.
   
   I figure even considering the shipping involved, online shopping probably has a much lower carbon footprint than going to a physical store to shop, not that eco-friendliness was top of my priority list, although the eco-friendliness of it is certainly a bonus.  Having done the math on the transportation carbon footprint alone...
   
   Physical Store Shopping: [Air/Ship Freight to country if product is not locally produced] + [Land freight to distribute product to physical stores] + [My transportation to physical store to buy and bring product back (2x)]
   Online Shopping: [Air/Ship freight to country, if product is not locally produced] + [Land freight distributor eg. Fedex, UPS to deliver product from warehouse to my house as final destination]
   
   Which frees up my time, transportation and energy to buy locally produced products for the products that count which are usually food items - valued for their freshness, quality, seasonal availability.

Commitment to Simpler Living

I have to admit, recently I've been frequenting Life Hacking and decluttering websites, in an attempt to find happiness from a simpler life (and save money).

As a result, I've made the simple resolution that moving forward, I will not be accepting any object gifts from anyone - not for Christmas, birthdays, thank you's or any other special event.

The truth is, I'm an incredibly hard person to buy a gift for. And rather than accept items which eventually become clutter in the house (a thankless acceptance, unfortunately) I would rather live with what I have. Buy me a meal, a concert ticket, something that becomes a memory instead.

So now I have to go around announcing this to everyone. Thanks, Mum. Life is simple.

How to Peel Garlic

It says something dramatic about the recent state of my being that my latest, greatest scientific, geeky breakthrough was to figure out how to peel garlic efficiently in a way that hasn't been explored on the internet.

This is no small matter. Google can and will tell you (usually) everything that you need to know. From the best way to cure a hangover to how to iron a shirt. God knows everything that I've learnt in life, I've learnt from a search engine.

That said, Google probably doesn't tell you the most efficient way of doing things. It will get by, suffice, get you through the day, but the best thing about a search engine is to prove the case that life's teacher doesn't get better than trial and error and experimentation, the best loved (and most fun) way of "taking it apart to find out how it works".

Most "How to Peel Garlic" guides online in a quick and easy way tell you to smash down hard on a clove of garlic with 1) a cleaver, 2) a large frying pan, 3) your boyfriend's flat side of the head... but all of these methods get the cleaver/frying pan/boyfriend's said cheek etc. unnecessarily dirty. Some clever guides also recommend the garlic peeler, which really works (I have one) which is an unnecessarily expensive tube of silicone'y rubber in which you put the garlic clove, roll on a work top, and presto, the garlic clove pops out of the tube after some satisfyingly crunchy sounds. It does work, albeit being overtly expensive for something that just peels garlic, but only works for larger, rounder cloves of garlic.

Enter my method for peeling garlic, which works for smaller cloves too: Hold the garlic clove at the ends with the thumb and forefinger of both hands. Twist in opposite directions to hear a satisfying crunching sound as the delicate papery skin of the garlic breaks and separates from the clove. Pull with thumb and forefinger of both hands in opposite directions and watch that paper skin fall away.

Why does it work? The garlic clove inside the skin is far softer and more pliable than the paper skin that contains it. By flexing the clove, you break the contact of the skin with the clove, which creates a space between the skin and clove that "peels" it for you.

Oh, and not only is this quick, but you get a whole clove intact. Unlike the fast, smash 'em up version.

The Art of Corporate Communications

I don't usually wax lyrical about corporate management or any sort of management spiel either. I am proud of the fact that I have never and will never read a management book, despite recognizing the infinite revenue capacities of the genre.

But after an enlightening conversation with an MBA friend yesterday about culture, accents, working in a large, matrixed organization - this morning I had an epiphany about... email.

Many management and communications guru wax lyrical about the evils of cold, heartless email. There are statistics about the number of (useless) emails we write and send every day, spam is condemned, email is condemned as spam. However, having struggled a little with accents across borders recently, I've come to realize that the best tool for working across borders may actually be... email.

Why? Email is an accentless, contextless medium. Despite the potential dangers of such a medium, the flipside to risk is always opportunities, and I can't help but see email as the most effective way for a corporate (read: cold) management (read: antisocial) person to get things done.

1. Know your kitchen. Many management communications articles focus on how remote management and the need for communications across borders due to globalization are hampered by a lack of context and the inability to build relationships across borders, especially in high context dependent cultures. Management comms articles who like to compartmentalize the human psyche focus on how we each have a "communication preference", hinting that you can tell the straightforward from the subtle in how they communicate over the phone - Jack the American blathing his needs over the phone to Yuki the Japanese nodding and silently disagreeing over the conference line. I don't believe any single person has a single communication preference. We pick, or should pick, our communication mediums and preferences based on what we want to achieve at any given time.
   
   So we know that subtlety is not email's strongest points. But then again, email isn't the only tool in the kitchen, and the recognition of the fact is communications' biggest win. Use email to get things done; and phone/webcam and face to face meetings focused on building relationships. In a conference call among many parties, build relationships over the phone and summarize action items in an email following up the call.
   
2. Exploit the blank. Blank isn't always cold and contextless. While over the phone we usually know why we have come together for a discussion, email starts off blank, without a purpose. Exploit the fact that email is without context and emotion to set the tone and purpose of the communication. State your intentions at the beginning of the email, outline key messages by prefacing the purpose of the communication.
   
3. Summary = Clarity. I learnt this trick by accident along the way. Use your advantage in good email management to benefit groups and individuals who don't. How many threads have you come across that warble and ramble across several weeks and individuals? Pull those together in a clear summary to all involved, and you will be remembered as the essential person bringing clarity and efficacy to a situation. By making brevity your best friend, you maximize the chances of your email being read, and minimize the spam-delete instinct that many of us develop these days.
   
4. Think before you speak. Master the art of drafting. I've learnt at several points in my life that email saves you from blurting, and gives you a last opportunity to retract your words before they are spoken. Several tools allow you to do that: Keep emails in your Outbox instead of sending them automatically. This allows you to review your email one last time before hitting the ultimate send button. Save important emails as Drafts, take the time to work on them, it's worthwhile. Put yourself on CC. Most people don't notice emails that they send, but take notice of emails that are sent to them. Copying yourself on key communications allows you not only a point of reference in the future, but builds in that self-criticality that is often missing from blurt-sending.

How to Clean Stuff .NET

The website that I would go to when I remember that I need to clean... Remind me again why it wasn't a bad idea to Google "how to iron a shirt"?

onestringbag

Just when I am trying to eliminate plastic bag in my frenetic response to the 10p tax law proposed and withdrawn, I was shopping at the supermarket the other day wondering about the even more excessive number of plastic bags that turn up from weighing fruit and vegs.

Those bags are even worse than plastic carrier bags, they're not recyclable, and are too small to be of any reuse value. Just as I thought that there must be one smart person out there who had figured out how to avoid using those bags - onestringbag appeared.

The one smart person who designed and created the onestringbag for grocery shopping happened also to shop at my beloved Victoria Market, and lives in one of my favourite cities. She's even now got the onestringbag open sourced so you can make them yourself using instructables - and in case you don't want to go through the trouble, you can buy them too.

Cooking for Engineers

This site is right up my alley...

http://www.cookingforengineers.com/

Simple Human Kitchen Designs

As part of the dinner divas and life hacks part of the blog, I spotted today the most perfect, well designed dish rack that's just the thing for enuwy. Now I wonder if she's looking for a dish rack.

What I love about it - it comes with a drip tray for water to run into the sink, looks beautiful and is compact enough for small spaces.

http://www.simplehuman.co.uk/products/index.asp?cat=5

The Bag Lady in the 21st Century

In the 2008 Budget, a carrier bag legislation potentially imposing a tax on carrier plastic bags in 2009 should usage not fall was pledged.

Plastic bags have become the new enemy. They are the new fruits on trees, they take ages (if at all) to bio-degrade, they're unnecessary, they are everywhere. In Tesco, Sainsbury, Marks and Spencer and other supermarkets, the recyclable bag-for-life or green alternatives have started to become the fad and increasingly the norm.

Fashionable, reusable shopping carriers is the new big market, as Anya Hindmarch found out by scratching the surface, and like a pair of nice, white Birkies, I too would like to own a well-designed, hand-made shopping bag from Greenwich Market.

I'm starting to take on the belief that the only thing plastic really ought to just be my credit card, and am finding myself gravitating, almost moth-to-flame-like, to the fad of fashionable yogurt in glass bottles, eggs in cardboard cartons and clothes in cloth bags. From the technological innovation it was 20 years ago, plastic has become the sticky bane of modern society.

And quite frankly, why not? Your liquid shampoo in a posh glass bottle just seems nicer somehow, doesn't it?

These days, hippie is the new posh.

Interestingly, in this new fad that I'm starting to really think is an incredible smart idea faintly marketed, not only do you not have to be rich to be clever (tm), this particular hippie posh fad might actually have material benefits, unlike the fads that came and went before. You just have to know how to get the look.

Shop Local = Niche Grocers, not Designers.

Not only does this bring unimagined conveniences having everything you need literally next door, hippie posh dictates that you will be on a first name basis with your niche greengrocer, butcher and fishmonger, who will reserve the freshest, latest and greatest catch of the day for your royal highness's enjoyment.

The Ideal: Your buff and fit butcher bloke (if Italian, add extra points. If also doubling as a delicatessen importing ham from a relatively unknown area of Italy with a population of 25 who all make ham, add maximum points.) slices and dices your meats to your liking, and flashes brilliant, flirty smiles when you walk into the store in your sundress and sandals.

The Look: Name drop your butcher, all the previously unheard of places in Italy where produce is home-made by nonni and wait for friends to ooh and ahh.

Recyclable Bags = Designer meets Supermarket.

A finer excuse to carry an Anya Hindmarch to a supermarket I have not yet come across. This should be a no brainer. Of course you don't use cheap (free) Tesco branded plastic bags! That's so last century and unenvironmentally friendly. Your bag for life is not a plastic bag (tm), it's either a suitably sized Anya Hindmarch or, if you didn't make the queues, a hand-made, one of a kind shopper's from the likes of Greenwich Market.

The Ideal: An "I Am Not a Plastic Bag" by Anya Hindmarch. Cautiously disclose the fact that you had walked, not driven to your nearest Sainsbury's to stand 3 hours in line to get the look.

The Look: A close contender would be a hand-made one of a kind from as exotic a market as you can possibly can get. Double points if you're bagging a bag from Morocco, Istanbul or Tunisia. Maximum points if you had hand-made (personally) your bag using recycled scraps of kimono fabric purchased from a bric-a-brac shop in central Tokyo.

Walking the Walk = Showing off designer footwear.

Top marks for the very Singaporean art of wearing shorts and Crocs to Orchard Road. I lie, do the very opposite and look for casual, understated and comfortable. Because unlike the Gucci heels you used to wear, you do actually have to walk in these.

Yes I know, it's a slight inconvenience. But on the bright side, it is almost an impossibility to be reading, working or otherwise pretending to be distracted by something more important than being on the tube when you're walking, so you have got your fellow walking commuters absolute attention. You now have an excuse to perfect your street stride for more than 60 seconds.

The Ideal: Kate Moss in a recent cosmetic ad did this to ultimate perfection. As she sauntered confidently along the street to turning heads... if street lamps had eyes, they would turn too. Add points for coverage if you're listening to an upbeat tune on your iPhone/iPod, double points for stepping to the music.

The Look: Dress up for walking. Invest in swishy skirts and long legged trousers and take that stride on, baby! And yes, you now have a shameless way of assessing people by the shoes they wear.

Standby Buster

The next time I am back in Singapore, I think it would be brilliant to bring a couple of these. I've been recently obsessed about saving electricity/the environment/water/money/the world and these fit right into that ethos.

Standby Busters are remote controlled electrical sockets that you can plug into as a conduit between the mains (usually tucked behind a shelf and hard to reach) and the multiplug electrical board that powers everything in the house.

You now get to turn off the electricity at the mains with the touch of a radio controlled remote controller.

Laundry bags as reusable grocery bags

One of the biggest campaigns here that has captured the attention of the media and retailers is against plastics, particularly plastic bags. The Daily Mail ran a few articles yesterday about how Marks & Spencers will start charging 5p for each single use plastic bag they hand out. Instead, they are preparing to give away free bags for life to customers instead, to encourage less use of single-use plastic bags that are a key pollutant in British waters and land.

I re-use nearly every single supermarket issued plastic bags as rubbish bags anyway, but reckoned that they build up much faster than I can use them, so treat myself to intermissions of reusable, eco-friendly bags every now and then to make my supermarket issued plastic bag supply decrease a little before I start up again.

Here's an idea where something good can come out of something not-quite-as-good-but-which-we-do-anyway.

You know how most people visit hotels and end up pilfering laundry bags, shoe bags and shopping bags, especially the cotton woven ones that are usually provided by hotels in countries with low cost labour?

Yes you do. They're the ones that usually come labelled with a "Not For Sale", "Do Not Remove" indications.

Browsing through Eco Bags (http://www.ecobags.com/) today, it struck me how many of these eco-bags actually look like they may be exactly the same bags as the laundry bags many of us pilfer for free.

Why not do something useful with the petty crime? Reuse these bags as grocery bags on Wednesdays when shopping in Carrefour or bring a couple with you when you go shopping and refuse a single-use, standard issue plastic bag. It's not Anya Hindmarch, but can still do something for the world.

La Petite Moi

On the plane ride back yesterday night, I realized that I really don't like reading newspapers. And with that thought, came to a stunning realization about myself.

Some people have lifelong passions and interests that they take very seriously. They have strong likes and dislikes, strong loves and hates. And some people, people like me, I think don't have very many large, intense, long-lasting loves and hates. They have quirks.

It has always been a difficulty for me to introduce myself. I can never really think of what to say, which is impossible, because while I do believe that I'm a relatively interesting person, I don't think that I have relatively interesting interests.

Because it's so hard coming up with likes and dislikes on the fly, I've decided last night to compile an accurate list for future reference, a list of quirks, if you will.

By some strange coincidence of fate I actually believe that many people end up sharing these quirks, whether they realise it or not.

La Petite Moi, a profile in miniature

LIKES

• Drinking tea
• Thinking in the shower
• Singing

DISLIKES

• Reading newspapers
• Puzzling Rubik's Cubes (I've never successfully completed one in my entire life, and I don't think I'm stupid, I just don't have Rubik's Cubes' intelligence)
• Three Dimensions

The Harder Edge to Soft Paws Anti-Scratching Solutions

So, before going any further, this is a gripe. In fact, this should be a consumer awareness article, but I won't be going as far as putting it up on any review sites.

Some context to start. I love my dog. My landlord loves her too (or has come to think she's very very cute) but before meeting my dog, she had requested that we do something to protect her hard wood floors from scratching caused by nails. This got me very worried, and so having turned to Mr Google for solutions, came across Soft Paws, among many other things to do to prevent your dog from scratching.

Developed by a veterinarian, Soft Paws are vinyl nail caps that glue on to your dogs nails. This amazing product effectively blunts your dog’s nails to protect against problem scratching; protecting against:

• Damage to Household Surfaces: Floors, Doors, Screens, Walls and Furniture
• Canine Skin Conditions Aggravated by Scratching
• Protects You from Scratches from Your Dog
• Dogs and Their Owners LOVE Them!

I bought a pack. It comes with 40 nail caps and 2 tubes of Soft Paws branded super glue that you use to stick the Soft Paws to your dog's nails. And so I did.

It worked a charm, for a while. Until I realised that the Soft Paws which were supposed to fall off naturally didn't. The glue that comes with Soft Paws really is super glue. Over time, the nails grow as they do, and the Soft Paws formed a thick, acrylic layer over the nails, changing the way Beanie walked.

Imagine artificial nails stuck on your toenails for months without coming off. That's probably what my uncomplaining dog had to put up with. I reckon when her nails started to curl, she probably just walked much less.

Dog lovers probably won't read this blog. But over time, I've found alternatives:

• Skilled nail clipping - it's not something only the groomer does
• Dremelling - A sanding tool which files your dog's nails down straight
• A nail file - God bless Manicure, it smoothes not just your nails

Any one of these options were far less painful for Beanie, more natural, and she's still not scratching the floor.

A sharp reminder to me not to opt for the lazy way out and do the right thing for the one living thing who always looks happy when I come home.

Oh Joy

I haven't blogged for some time. I have been bogged down in the mediocrity that I call the work-home-sleep-work routine. It's a short and simple routine, easy to accomplish, and I know if I let it, it will take the next 35 years of my life.

Like Parent Hacks and Life Hacks love to make you believe, apparently there are tips - means, ways, tricks - about this business of living mundanity. Ways, like microwaves and washing machines, attempt to shorten the time it takes to go through the work-home-sleep-work routine.

It's still 24 hours all the same, no matter whether you choose Life, choose a television or choose a washing machine.

I try to be happy. But sometimes, there is very little joy in having to decide what to cook for dinner every day, waking up at exactly the same time every morning, leaving for work at precisely 7.53am in the morning and coming home when the sunlight falls dim in the horizon.

Over the course of this dreary mind-numbness we call the yuppy life, I've realised what it takes to make me smile.

1. Do one thing different every day just for the heck of it. And it has to be obvious. If you take the bus to work, cycle. If you cycle, walk. If you walk, take the bus and talk to somebody on the way to work. Something, anything, to break the cycle that makes you forget your days.
2. See a dog smile. OK, this might be hard for those of you who don't have dogs. But try and make a random passing animal very happy and see what that does for you. Note: animals include humans if you find it hard to be kind to a stray.
3. Take a walk outside for 15 minutes on your own. Say nothing to yourself or anyone, even though you may have many thoughts in your head. Walk slowly. Enjoy and savour each step, each moment as the scenery on either side flick by you little by little with each passing step. Listen to the sound of your feet on the asphalt. If you like the beat faster, try jogging. If you can, try doing this around the time when the sun is either setting or rising. The result is a curious epiphany, filled with the realization of your place in the world, however big or small, and a sense of purpose about breathing and living.

I used to laugh about the vague poetry in taking in the weather, fresh air and surroundings. I suppose it must be part of living life here that suddenly, a great connection to the great outdoors wells up in some hitherto unknown part of this city girl. Suddenly there's no greater joy than to sit or walk with a loved one outside in the cool air, taking in the sunset and smiling friendly faces at passers-by.

The challenge as always, is keeping up the passion for life and everyone, keeping the romance breathing and living. It's all to easy to sink into the sofa, stay silent for two hours and hear only the occassional laughter to "Friends".

Life's Little Pleasures

As someone I don't know anymore wisely once said, "Life is made up of little pleasures." I used to add, "Small victories", and it became my nickname for a time, and I liked it.

I'd conjured it out of irony. Small victories. They are small, no? Une petit peu. Little. Tiny. Miniscule. Nearly insignificant.

But then steps in the word victories. It is a claim, no matter how small, of a battle won. It is something to be proud of. No matter how tiny? Or does it not matter no matter how victorious, because it is so small?

How someone came to view the nickname became a measure of his optimism. It was like a litmus test of faith almost - a glass, half empty? Half full?

I'd like to think I was being ironic. An optimist embarassed to admit to hope. But some people I'd met had flat out gone for small victories like this. And I'd honestly like to say that I thank them, and admire them for their honesty in living.

At the end of the day, when the sun sets and you lock the door and throw away the key - the sum of life is truly made up of little pleasures. We'd hardly remember anything else anyway.

My little pleasures of the day:

1. I rediscovered my oven. Ironically, I'd always prepped myself up with the mindset that my oven had too many bells and whistles. I'd somehow thought there were 4 timer settings (there are only 2) and 4 dials with 4 cooking types (and I could only think of 2: grill and oven - what else is there?!).
   
   It wasn't until today when I studiously read the manual (for the first time, I might add) and approached the oven with a get-to-know-you-bow usually reserved only for hippogriffs, that I realised it wasn't quite as unapproachable as I'd thought it was. It takes approx. 10 minutes top to pre-heat the oven (no setting) and there are only two main oven settings - the grill and the oven - to worry about. The rest were bells and whistles.
   
   One dial was for the light (imagine that! Were the makers of the oven thinking that I'd wanted mood lighting for my chicken?!) and another was for defrosting (probably a good idea in freezer to oven emergencies).
   
   I'd also found out that there were actually only two timers relevant to the course of baking. One, the useful one, which turns off the oven after the stated time, and the other which simply beeps and does nothing except act as a useful reminder to come to the oven and gape at the hopefully not burning dish.
   
   This is helpful. After some time of respectful silence at the oven's glowing door, I think I might actually come to be able to use this thing with some measure of ability. I'd better. I've been scouring baking recipes online already.
   
2. Heston Blumenthal was in search of perfection on TV today. He made what was probably the truly most perfect but more tedious and time consuming bangers and mash and treacle tart with ice cream. Honestly, one thinks, how much effort could possibly go into bangers and mash?
   
   But no! The god of cooking himself blew my mind away by making his own bangers - including, and not limited to, soaking well toasted bread in water before using the water for the bangers, just so that a nice, roasty smell would get into the sausages, and using a gas thingymajig found at the University of Reading to deconstruct golden syrup for treacle tart.
   
   I have to say this, the ice cream took it a step further in the pursuit of gastronomic happiness. He went to Guernsey, milked a cow, and using liquid nitrogen, made ice cream (straight from cow to ice cream) in under 4 minutes. "I never leave home without it. Not picnics, not barbeques, not holidays." says he of his liquid nitro kit. I'd say, if I weren't Heston blooming Blumenthal, I may get stopped by customs for carrying dangerous, potentially pressurized materials to my next Grecian holiday.
   
   That said though, the ice cream made fresh from cow squeezed did look gorgeously delicious. He'd taken a swipe with a finger off the whisk and there was 0.38 seconds there where I contemplated the possibility of licking the television.
   
3. I made a gorgeous dinner and it didn't take any effort at all. I'm going to do more of this in future. The discovery of returned time while dinner is effortlessly baking in the oven is bliss, truly bliss.
   
   So this is life. It starts with a struggle, there is the fall of the proud, and the rise of the humble, good triumphes over evil, there's some decadence involves, and finally, the laurels of success.
   
   The parables of life, summarized in the kitchen.

Small victories, eh? It was an enormous achievement for me (Pope-tongue-in-cheek) to have conquered my oven, battled my fears and now be able to stare confidently at the box of gold that looms before me.

Victories, however small, are victories anyway. In my present time and space, I'd take whatever I can get.

Organizing travel brochures

So a whole stack of travel brochures to assorted places in the world that one tends to collect when going on tour surfaced today. And on a whim, I've found the best way to organize them.

Requires:
One A4 size executive multi pocket folder. The kind that basically has many pockets, tab tags at the top and look like an A4 sized accordion.

Dump brochures in there by city, sorted alphabetically or by region... whatever way you prefer.

Dryer Sheets as limescale remover

Apparently, many people know about this already, but I've just found out and I'm amazed! I've no clue how this works, but it does!

Wetting a tumble dryer sheet and then using it to wipe limescale and soap scum encrusted stuff dissolves the limescale on them, leaving them good as new.

It's quite brilliant actually. One thing though, for severely hard limescale stains, it probably makes more sense to leave the dryer sheet on to soak for a while, then rinse off and dry. They don't work so good with just one wipe. Wonder if thick fabric softener liquid would have the same effect, surely they're made of the same things as dryer sheets?

Garbage Disposal Cleaning

Few people have garbage disposal units in Singapore, but I honestly promise you, once you've had one, it's incredibly difficult to do without one.

Here's a hack I found for cleaning it.

When going about your regular kitchen cleaning, you don't want to overlook your garbage disposal. Especially if food is scraped into the disposal when regularly washing the dishes. To clean grease and leftover food from your disposal and sharpen the blades at the same time, sprinkle liberally with baking soda and pour white vinegar over until it bubbles. Let set ten minutes. Rinse with hot water. Put two or three ice cubes in the disposal and grind. Rinse again with hot water. Now your disposal is clean and odor free.

Duct Tape Wallet

Or how to convert an old and used, torn up and dirty wallets into new and fancy ones using just multi coloured duct tape.

(Now tell me where to buy lime green and fuscia pink duct tape!)

Silver Polish Method for real?

I just had to keep this tip:

Put a sheet of aluminum foil into a plastic or glass bowl. Sprinkle the foil with salt and baking soda and fill the bowl with warm water. Soak your silver in the bowl and tarnish migrates to the foil. Dry and buff.