16 Japanese beers & 1 Dried Sotong Predator.

Behold, the Great Japanese Beer Pyramid!



It started out with the three of us walking around aimlessly with around Kyoto wondering what to do. Then we stopped by a liquor store and saw this:



OOOOOH, SO MANY DIFFERENT TYPES OF PRETTY BEER CANS.. CANNOT RESIST. MUST.. BUY....

So we bought a couple of different beers each to take back to the room to try. At first we only had about 7 beers. Then we ran out of beer, and decided to walk all the way out to the Lawson 24-hour store to get ANOTHER nine different beers. AAAND we finished everything that very night.




As you can see, most of the beers are from the big four of Japanese beer - Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory - though we did manage to get our hands on a few Kyoto craft beers though, so that was interesting.

We didn't try the ones we'd already had before, such as Suntory The Premium Malt's or Asahi Dry, but we tried to get as much variety as possible (though even that was hard, because most of the Japanese commercial beers tend to be lagers and pilsners, or Happoshu, which is a type of 'beer' that has less than 67% malt content.

We even had a run in with a dried sotong that looked like a Predator:



Anyway, what did we learn from this binge... er.. extensive tasting? First of all, most Japanese beers taste the same. The craft beers from Haneda Brewery were interesting, but not exactly distinctive. Secondly, it's hard to distinguish one lager from the other when you've already tried 10 others before it. Third: IF you want a beer with flavour.. don't drink a happoshu.

Anyway, here's what we drank that night, based on what I managed to tag on my Untappd account:


1) Kyoto Kolsch
(Haneda Sake Brewery)
Style: Kölsch
Tasting Notes: Craft beer brewed in Kyoto. Other than the hint of sake rice in the nose, it's light and otherwise unremarkable.

2) Winter Limited Edition
(Kirin Brewery Company)
Style: Pilsner
Tasting Notes: MEH

3) Yebisu Premium
(Sapporo Breweries)
Style: Dortmunder / Export Lager
Tasting Notes: Ngeh. Ordinary. Prefer Suntory Premium Malt's.

4) ICHIBAN 2012 Hop Harvest
(Kirin Brewery Company)
Style: Pilsner
Tasting Notes: Pretty good for a pilsner. Good malty hoppy notes. A 2012 limited edition.

5) Asahi Off
(Asahi Breweries)
Style: Pale Lager
Tasting Notes: Not bad. Slightly more flavour than the normal Asahi Dry. Nothing "off" about it, heh heh.


6) Hokkaido Premium
(Sapporo Breweries)
Style: Happoshu
Tasting: Premium my foot. Sure, it's got slightly more flavor than the usual happoshu, but it's still almost tasteless.

7) Kohaku Yebisu
(Sapporo Breweries)
Style: American Amber / Red Ale
Tasting Notes: This was interesting. A nice departure from the usual Yebisu, and an ALE for a change.

8) Suntory Rich Malt
(Suntory)
Style: Japanese Rice Lager
Tasting Notes: Not bad actually. Hint of rice, and nice distinctive flavor, for a lager.

9) Asahi Style Free
(Asahi Breweries)
Style: Happoshu
Tasting Notes: Er... light and bland


10) The Winter's Tale
(Sapporo Breweries)
Style: Pilsner
Tasting Notes: I think it's a 25 Year Anniversary limited edition or something. Not bad. It's still a lager, but with some nice flavors.

11) Clear Asahi
(Asahi Breweries)
Style: Pale Lager
Tasting Notes: It's like Asahi Dry, but Lite. Which is like saying it has NO TASTE AT ALL.

12) Syuzan Kaido Weizen
(Haneda Sake Brewery)
Style: Kölsch
Tasting Notes: Craft beer from Kyoto. Pretty decent. Good bite, nice malty nose.

13) Asahi Super Dry Dry Black
(Asahi Breweries)
Style: Black Lager
Tasting Notes: No nose at all, hardly any taste. Like Asahi Dry but with more body. Very unlike the Asahi Black I had before.

14) Kyoto Amber Ale
(Haneda Sake Brewery)
Style: English Brown Ale
Tasting Notes: Kyoto-brewed craft beer.. Decent hoppy nose, but a bit flat taste-wise.

15) Tanrei Green Label
(Kirin Brewery Company)
Style: Happoshu
Tasting Notes: Light. And er... nothing else

16) Nodogoshi Nama
(Kirin Brewery Company)
Style: Happoshu
Tasting Notes: It's a happoshu, so there really isn't much to shout about in terms of the taste.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Other than the 16 beers above, I later tried another two beers, just for the heck of it:

17) Asahi Direct Shot 
(Asahi Breweries)
Style: Happoshu
Tasting notes: I think the name says it all. It's just a direct shot of alcohol (5% only though), with hardly any taste.

18) Hitachino Nest Ancient Nipponia
(Kiuchi Brewery)
Style: Golden Ale
Tasting notes: At 6.5%ABV, this was the strongest beer I had throughout the trip, would you believe it. the rest were like 5.5% or less, WTF. Anyway, this is supposedly brewed with two traditional Japanese ingredients: the ancient Japanese Kaneko Golden barley, and Sorachi Ace, a hop that used to be from Japan. It was surprisingly light, but there was a nice hoppy, yeasty nose to it. Not much of a body, but a nice, crisp if a bit strange tasting beer.

Super Non-Halal Vodka

When I was doing 'research' for one of my Tipsy-Turvy columns, I stumbled upon an article that mentioned bacon-flavoured vodka. I didn't really think much about it then, until Deep actually blogged about it later on, and his post included a few links to recipes on how to make your own bacon vodka.

And since I had about half a bottle of vodka left from the free bottle I won from air-guitaring at the Absolut Rock party, I decided, what the heck, lets try to make some bacon vodka!

It's actually really easy. First you get some bacon, and fry it:



You can either leave it in strips, or cut them into chips like I did:



Now that you have your nicely fried bacon, get your bottle of vodka:



And dump all the bacon inside!



Yeah, looks damn yucky, I know.

Anyway, the next step is to keep the bottle aside in a cupboard for about 3 weeks.

At the end of 3 weeks, put the bottle into the freezer to solidify the fat, and then use coffee filter paper to filter it.

At the end of it, you should get a very nice golden colored vodka that actually smells exactly like bacon (albeit with a very strong vodka kick).



After all that, how does it taste?

BLOODY BRILLIANT.

No kidding. Bacon vodka may sound a little yucky, but it actually tastes BRILLIANT. Fireangel will attest to it, we actually tried it neat for the first time two weeks ago at a little Drink Eyeris' Booze get-together, and it was great!

At first taste, it tastes exactly like bacon - freshly-fried bacon; and then the vodka kicks in. And the finish is a nice, lingering bacon flavor.

Whoever first thought of infusing bacon with vodka, I salute you. Heck if the commercially produced BAKON VODKA tastes anything like what I made, then someone needs to start bringing bottles of the stuff here RIGHT NOW!

Though I reckon that we're gonna need some SUPER-non-halal stickers to slap to them bottles....

Optimus Prime In a Glass Kandang

(Sorry I have to 'borrow' your photos for now, Tian Chad! I'm in Bali now and my own photos are in the laptop at home!)

If you were at Mid Valley on two Saturdays ago, you would probably have seen some weird dude wearing an Optimus Prime helmet, trapped in a glass enclosure at the Astro B.YOND PVR booth with four sofas and three other bloggers; screaming and waving frantically at people to vote for him.

Don't be alarmed, it was only me, trying to get as many people at the Astro B.yond PVR blogger's challenge, in which the four of us - me, Beautiful Nara, Red Mummy and 3iling - were confined to that little 'kandang' (as Astro's @azarialoh called it) for 8 whole hours, with only tuna sandwiches for lunch (though they did feed us Krispy Kreme donuts later. :D)


(picture taken from Tian Chad!)

Of course, the challenge was not just about surviving 8 hours in that glass kandang – we were also there to try out the new Astro Byond Personal Video Recorder (PVR), which was actually pretty cool. It lets you record any Astro program you want so you can watch it later; rewind parts or the show you’re watching, or pause a show to go and take a leak (hey, if you got to go, you got to go, eh?).



Not only that, we had to do quite a number of 'tasks' as well, ranging from blogging, posting on Astro's Facebook page and tweeting about the event to try and get people to come visit the booth to support us, to treasure hunts, and er... wrestling matches. But more on that later.

Anyway, some of the easier tasks were blogging and tweeting, and I even managed a little Movie Not-Review in one of the tasks, which was to write a short program introduction for the Astro Facebook page. Mine was Art Heist, which I didn't watch, BTW, but hey, the synopsis was online, and it has Ellen Pompeo before she became famous! Easy peasy. :D

Getting people to LIKE those posts was a different matter though. Red Mummy and Beautiful Nara's daily traffic far outstrip my WEEKLY one, so naturally, they had lots of people liking and commenting on their posts and tasks. I think I came in last in almost every single one of them. T_T

Came to a point when I almost gave up even TRYING to get people to comment and like the post. So demoralizing to see the others get like 40-50 comments in a jiffy, while I only mustered about 20 plus each time. T_T

(Also I think I lost all those tasks in the morning because all my regular readers don't wake up until after lunch... T_T)

Anyway, the afternoon segment was more fun for me, because all my friends finally managed to wake up for lunch and head over to Mid Valley to support me! YAY!

There was Kimberlycun, Elfie, Sotong, Suanie, KY, Haze, God, Peter Tan & Wuan, Hantu Bola Din, Nigel... thanks for braving the mad mad jam at Mid Valley to come see me make a fool out of myself, guys! And special mention to Fireangel, who circled the parking lot for 45 minutes before giving up. :-( Thanks for trying! *hugs*

Zoe even came with a cute little signboard for Optimash Prime! WOOT! (I think Optimash has more fans than I do. :-( ) (I'll post a better picture when I get back home!)

Oh, before that there was also a poster war and a campaigning session where Red Mummy's Red Legion of Fans were campaigning loudly together with Beautiful Nara's. In the end I had to resort to using the Optimus Prime helmet and Optimash to try and garner some sympathy votes...

But that tactic backfired spectacularly when some families voted for Eiling instead, because I scared their kids. :-(


(picture taken from Tian Chad!)

But Never fear! Huai Bin and the Nuffnang gang also had some NON-traffic related tasks, the first of which was a treasure hunt where we had to find some buttons around the booth, then pull people into listening to the AStro B.yond PVR pitch (reminded me why I HATE doing sales).

There were also some tasks that revolved around learning how to use the Astro B.YOND PVR decoder functions, especially the RECORD function. It turned out to be pretty simple to use – if you’re familiar with the Astro remote, you should be at home with it (in fact, I found it easier to use than the usual Astro remote) One of the tasks was to find a program, and then record it. Navigation of the programs was simple enough, and the recording was pretty simple as well – just find the program, and then press record. No more missing Glee because you had to go to a party with freeflow! YAY!

And last but not least, there was THAT WRESTLING MATCH at the end! Whose idea was that eh? To have all four of us FIGHTING for the remote control to record a show. Whoever got it first had an automatic 300 points, after which the rest could grab it from him.

I got it first, but when my 30 seconds were almost up, I had an ingenious plan to hide the remote on TOP of the Astro backdrop so no one else could get it. MUAHAHAHAHAH!

Unfortunately, such dirty tactics are frowned upon and I think it cost me 150 points. :-(

In the end, it was all to no avail, because RED MUMMY won the Astro B.YOND PVR service as the winner of the blogger challenge! The rest of us? We got some nifty Discovery Channel laptop bags, and a T-shirt. Sigh.

But never mind what we got, in the end it was great fun being stuck in that place with those 3 other bloggers. Great job, Astro, for organizing a great event!

PS: For more information on Astro B.yond PVR, go check out www.astro.com.my/byond. Oh, and go join Astro's Facebook page as well... it might have MORE embarrassing pictures of me in that glass cell...

ROCK ON, ABSOLUT-LY!

Here's what I remember about the Absolut Rock party last Friday night.

- The music was ROCKING, in all senses of the word.
- The drinks were FLOWING, though the bar was congested.
- Champagne + vodka is just EVIL

Other than that basically all I remember was this:

We came:


(The Ultimate Rock Chick With Shaven Head - Reta)


(Elfie trying to get Deep to marry her. Horng jadi tiang lampu)

We camwhored:


(Ruby, Kim, Shaolintiger, Haze, Sotong and Fireangel)

We drank (a lot):




And we went ABSOLUT-LY mental:


(Hmm, FA looks like she's trying to grope Reta here...)


(Kim air-guitaring. God doing... er whatever God does best.)

Oh yeah, then...

I played a bit of air guitar onstage



And we continued rocking with a bottle of free vodka!



ROCK ON, ABSOLUT-LY!

To Insanity, and B.Yond!

My motto in life has always been to try everything ONCE. Even if you don't like it, at least I tried it ONCE.

And suffice to say, I've never been stuck in a glass cell for 8 hours straight in the middle of Mid Valley on a Saturday, where hundreds of zoo-goers... er... I mean, shoppers can gawk at me, scrutinize my every move, and watch me pick my nose. So I just HAD to try it ONCE.

Yup, that's what I'm gonna be going through this Saturday (5th June): from 10am onwards, at Midvalley Megamall,Ground Floor North Court (near Jaya Jusco): I'm gonna be stuck in that little glass cell with three other bloggers - namely Beautiful Nara, Eiling, and Red Mummy.

And what's this all for? It's all for B.YOND!



Oops, sorry, wrong Beyond (Ka Kui we miss youuuuu!)

I meant Astro B.yond PVR (which stands for Personal Video Recorder, BTW). The event is all part of the Astro B.yond PVR roadshow this weekend (which is sponsored by Astro, obviously)

Did you miss the finale of Lost because you were well, lost? Or missed the finale of 24 because you were working 24/7? Or the crowning of a new American Idol because you just didn't care anymore? Well, now you can record them and watch it later!

Personally, I kinda wish they had this back in 2005 when Liverpool won the Champion's League. Then I could have recorded that match, and watched it again and again to overcome the agony of watching them playing like crap this ENTIRE season. (I also wish there was a DELETE function as well, so I can delete all those Justin Bieber music videos on MTV these days; but hey, you can't win them all...)

One of my favorite parts is I can even pause and rewind the TV shows as I watch them. So now if Transformers 2 is on and I want to watch Megan Fox er.. run in slow-motion (and in HIGH DEFINITION!), I can just rewind back that scene as many times as I like! WOOT WOOT HUBBA HUBBA!

Oh, and you can even do it during live football matches! Best feature ever, especially with the World Cup coming up and all...



So now you never have to miss a headbutt or Hand of God moment again! (doesn't allow you to fast-forward to see who won the matches though. Darn. Where's Doc Brown when you need em?)

Anyway, what does all this have to do with me being stuck with three other bloggers in a glass enclosure? Well, besides the chance to make fools out of ourselves, one of us will also get to win the Astro PVR service by doing various tasks during that time.

Unfortunately for me, those tasks will require some participation from my er... blog readers.

Here's where you come in. You see, I'll be up against three bloggers whose daily traffic probably exceeds my WEEKLY traffic; so I'm gonna need all the help I can get.

So if you're free on Saturday, head on over to Mid Valley so you can gawk at the four of us, and hopefully, give me some of your votes so you can help me, this little underdog to BEAT those three other femes bloggers! MUAHAHAHAHA!



PS: There's also going to be a RRPP (Record, Rewind, Pause, Play) Facebook contest, where you guys get to share your personal wish list on what shows or moments YOU would like to Record, Rewind or Pause. Stay tuned for more details on that!

PSS: On that note, for more information on Astro B.yond PVR, go check out www.astro.com.my/byond. Oh, and go join Astro's Facebook page as well... it might have MORE embarrassing pictures of me in that glass cell...

PSSS: BTW, if you have trouble recognizing me, I'll probably be the one in an Optimus Prime helmet. Watudu, I shy mar... hehehe

EAT MY REVERSE, EARTH HOUR!

Yes, I even reused that picture above. See, I'm THAT energy efficient HAHHAAHA.

I wasn't going to do the same thing I did last year, but I got so annoyed at the whole bloody Earth Hour publicity machine that I decided what the heck, let's syiok sendiri again and do Reverse Earth Hour again and turn OFF every single light for 23 hours and turn them ALL ON during Earth Hour when everyone's (supposed to be) turning them OFF.

So now all the lights in my house are blazing bright, when everywhere else its SUPPOSED to be dark (c'mon, fess up, how many of you actually BOTHERED to turn off yer lights?)

Anyway, during that one hour of light I managed to cook dinner, eat dinner, wash up, take a shower, watch a little Battlestar Galactica, AND write this post at the same time. So SCREW YOU, Earth Hour. All your so called hype about 'saving energy' is all BULLCRAP. This so-called 'awareness campaign' has WASTED more energy in all those stupid CONCERTS, EVENTS and PROMOTIONS people have been organising for it.

The other day some promoters actually came to my office in a HUGE FUEL GUZZLING pickup truck, and they were passing out PLASTIC Earth Hour handfans, which probably cost more energy to MAKE than you ever will save by turning off your lights for ONE FUCKING HOUR. (in case you were wondering, I refused the fans by saying 'I'm very AGAINST Earth Hour', and the promoter looked at me like I'd just clubbed a baby seal. HAHAHA!)

Vincent got it right when he said on his Facebook status:

"I cut my plant's gas consumption by 1100 gigaBTUs - equivalent to lighting up 5.25 million 60W lightbulbs for 1 hr. There are thousands of engineers just like me. My point is - don't be so narcisstic, "switching off lights" is more irrelevant than you think. As a corporate entity, if you really want to make a difference, start a scholarship fund to train more awesome engineers"

You wanna 'save the Earth? Recycle your waste! Use energy saving lights! Don't turn on your air-conditioning 24/7! Don't use plastic bags or Styrofoam containers! Use a more fuel-conserving car! open your curtains to let the natural light in and don't turn on your lights in the daytime!

Turning your lights off for ONE FUCKING HOUR in A YEAR won't 'conserve energy', dumbass!

So yeah, HAPPY REVERSE EARTH HOUR TO YOU. I've saved MORE energy today than YOU did.

So yeah, EAT THAT, EARTH HOUR!

Absolut Kayu Emcee

This was what happened at the Absolute Love launch two months ago:



And this was what happened last month at the Absolute Love finale at Frangipani:



Don't ask.

Those damn stickers were supposed to win me a prize, dammit. Everyone was given a piece of paper with all the stickers on them, and idea was that you were supposed to collect them and the one with THE MOST stickers would win something, which was a bottle of Absolute vodka.

Mana tau the KAYU emcee went and announce that the FIRST PERSON to go up to him WITH THE MOST STICKERS would win, which is the STUPIDEST THING I've ever heard, because it means that if you had just fucking ONE sticker and went up to him FIRST, you would win.

In the end, some idiot with what, 20 stickers won because he WAS THERE FIRST, and even when I stood next to them and everyone could clearly see I had the MOST stickers, the KAYU emcee said, sorry dude, you should have been here FIRST.

Dumbass. Tak logic langsung. EMCEE KAYUUUUUUU!!!!! I WANT MY BOTTLE OF ABSOLUTE VODKA GODAMMIT!

That gross injustice aside, it was a pretty good night with lots of freeflow vodka cocktails. ShaolinTiger, Kimberlycun, Elfie, Rachel, Deep, God, and Suanie were all there (WHO CARES ABOUT KY??!!??)


(with le Suan and le GF)

There was even this cool wall with arms that hugged (or grope/fondle/molested) you as you came in. And look, the Syarikat Tumpang Glamour took a picture with it!


(Reta, I photoshop the 'exposed' part oledi. hahaha)

Oh well, at least we had fun. And the stickers made for some crazy pictures indeed. Here's me pretending to be a drunk Chinese vampire, complete with sticker on forehead:


(picture from Terenceg.com)

One thing is for sure though. You won't catch me doing this sort of thing without having a couplea vodkas already swishing in my tummy and messing up my head.

I can has more vodka?

Introducing... The Dirty Tortoise!

Maybe it was the beer. Maybe it was spending two days straight listening to Neil Gaiman talk about writing, and interviewing other authors at the Singapore Writer's Fest.

Whatever the reason, it 'inspired' me to give NaNoWriMo another chance. So, at the very last minute, I signed up for the mad 50000 words in 30 day challenge once again.

This time, I might actually have a chance of finishing it. My story this time round is based on something my father made up years ago when I was a child and hankering for bedtime stories. My dad made up stories about a dirty tortoise named, well, Dirty Tortoise, who lived in a drain in the Temerloh wet market. While I don't remember the exact stories he used to tell me, I figured I'll just take the main character, and go from there.

My plan is just to come up with a location, a bunch of characters and then just wing it till the 50000 words or the deadline, whichever comes first. It's probably gonna be like Walter Moer's books where I make up anything and everything, so it's gonan be a little haphazard and crazy. That's gotta make it easier to get out of holes I find myself in later on in the story too, I hope. heh heh.

Anyway, so far, so good, I've got more than 3000 words on the first day, with 2000+ in the proper narrative and the other thousand reserved for later chapters.

If you wanna see how the story is turning out, you can check out this blog I set up: The Dirty Tortoise, to read the chapters I've finished. As of now, there are two chapters of rambling and hardly any dialogue, but hey, it IS a work in progress after all.

I set up the blog for two reasons - I wanted some feedback on the story (feel free to criticize or heckle me), and I also want to FORCE myself to finish NanoWrimo this time. I figure if people start reading it and pestering me to keep writing (or stop, whichever comes first), then I'll be more motivated to finish the damn thing.

Anyway, that's the story of how Dirty Tortoise came about. Now on to Chapter Three! WHEE!

How To Get a Tummy Ache: An Expert Guide

Take one empty tummy.
Throw in six pieces of McDonald's Chicken McNuggets.
Add two gulps of Coca-Cola.
Sprinkle five fries on it,
Then mix in a whole cup of chocolate fudge sundae.
Dilute the mixture with a glass of vodka lime,
And then mix it all up with two hours of badminton.
After the game, add one glass of A&W Root Beer,
Two pieces of fried chicken,
And finally, garnish with two onion rings.
Voila! One tummyache special!
Serves one toilet bowl.

How The Big Bad Wolf Sale Devoured My Money...

Place: Big Bad Wolf Book Sale
Total number of books: 33
Money spent: RM117 on first day, RM124 on second day.
TOTAL DAMAGE: RM241

Signs of domesticity. Those cookbooks only cost me RM5 each!



Fantasy & Sci-Fi, including five Philip K. Dicks at RM8 EACH, and an entire SET of Garth Nix's Seventh Tower series for RM5 PER BOOK!



Books that make me look intellectual:



Comics, very little choices, thank god, or my damage would be MORE:



And that's not all. THIS is the girlfriend's stash... THIRTY SEVEN BOOKS for a total of... RM298! That's an average of RM8 PER BOOK!



Needless to say, we're VERY AFRAID of going back there again, even with the thought of even MORE boxes being opened today and tomorrow....

Project Reverse Earth Hour (a.k.a. Eyeris Syiok Sendiri)

I'm currently sitting here in the dark, typing this post by vanilla-scented candlelight. Why? Because I'm embarking on one of the stupidest missions this blog has ever conceived - to do a REVERSE Earth Hour by going from midnight to midnight without turning on the lights... except during Earth Hour.

You see, while everyone is all hyped up about turning OFF their lights at 8:30pm-9:30pm, I'M planning to go the entire day WITHOUT lights, and THEN turn them ALL ON at 8:30-9:30pm, just to spite you all... MUAHAHAHAHA!

Ok, so it's a rather silly idea, but I must say, not having the lights on in my apartment is pretty cool. I still have my laptop and my fans on though... hey, Earth Hour is about turning off your LIGHTS only right? Heh.

I figure I can go through the day without turning a single light on (I tried it today, after opening all the windows and curtains, I had enough sunlight coming in that I didn't need to turn on a single light). The night is gonna be trickier though... so I decided to buy a whole bunch of tealights from IKEA, and light up the house using that. So far so good, I haven't walked into any walls yet...

Keep a look out for the Tweet feed on my sidebar for updates on how Project Reverse Earth Hour is going tomorrow! Until the next update, Goodnight!