Sunday, July 27, 2008

Burn in hell, fashion designers. Burn in hell.

Today I'll give you guys a treat... But first you have to endure some boring re-telling of my mundane life which I pretend to be oh-so-super-exciting like every other self-proclaimed 'blogger'.

I stayed over at Izyan's house/mini-mansion/rustic resort last weekend. Three gazebos, a fishing pond, vast space, eight Persian cats and much, much more. I should take pictures next time.

Saturday, we shopped at Berjaya Times Square, Sungei Wang, Lowyat and Pavillion. The purpose?

TO BUY GIRLZ CLOTHES. YOU HEARD ME, SISTAH *SNAPS FINGERS*. (Of course, we didn't shop for clothes in Lowyat... my feet just started moving by itself to that safe-haven cursed building).

As a favour to Nurisya, I'll probably take pictures of myself in them but that's probably after I learn lock-picking to steal from your nearby Sony electronics/gadgets store.

Oh, and meet Balqis:

...I don't know why she's making that face either. It's quite embarras... On second thought, who is that stranger to the far right?!



To be completely honest, I didn't enjoy clothes shopping. It felt forced. I didn't have much of an opinion about any of the clothes, nor did it compel me to have a preference. The purpose of these two was to stop me from buying clothes for guys. Apparently, I can't tell the difference in gender clothings.

Additionally, it was not until the 2nd hour when my mind started conjuring images of piled female clothes, a tank of gasoline and a lighter.

An improvement, I say. :D

Now for the treat. Guess what Izyan normally does on weekends?





She bakes. (OH WOW, REALLY AZIEMAH? FROM ALL THOSE PICTURES, I COULD HARDLY TELL OMGZORZ!)

In fact, she's even running a business. What's impressive is, the whole thing was her idea and it's quite profitable and is currently amassing popularity.

Her niche is in baking cupcakes. Accordingly, she uses a vanilla/chocolate cake recipe. Even her icing has a vanilla essence to it, with a zesty aftertaste. It's not sweet and very light, and that's why I actually ate whole spoonfuls of it before she caught me doing so. The designs are absolutely charming, too:





But what I think is ingenious is the part where she commercialises it as the perfect birthday surprise, where the customers select the design:




And it's cheap! She told me that she went around surveying the prices of others, and was appalled and how steeply priced they were.

Here's the pricing extract from her website (Her sister runs the website, but Izyan actually has the skillz):

Cupcakes
small
Vanilla - RM0.70/piece or RM29/box
Chocolate - RM0.80/piece or RM33/box


small sized cupcakes - minimum order 42 pieces or 1 box

big
Vanilla - RM1.20/piece or RM36/box
Chocolate - RM1.30/piece or RM39/box
Cookies and Cream - RM1.30/piece or RM39/box
Chocolate Mud - RM1.50/piece or RM45/box (no change in pricing)
Egg Free Chocolate - RM1.50/piece or RM45/box (no change in pricing)


I'm blogging about this not to help her advertise or anything (I don't think it's possible under the amount of traffic I get anyway) since as things are now, she doesn't seem to need any help. It's because I'm very impressed at the affordable price she sets. I'm definitely ordering some for my Mak Long for her birthday.

Another thing, it's a pity that most of these designs were from the earlier batch, when she was not as skilled. Her recent ones are much more impressive, neater and more creative. She has yet to upload these so maybe I'll show them to you when she does.

Oh, and I saved the best for last:


Blueberry Cheese Tarts <3.

Yesterday, I actually helped her bake 140 of these in a night! I didn't mind though, because I was paid for in cheese tarts. What's amazing is the crust is deliciously edible by itself. The base is very thin, so she call fill in generous amount of cheese fillings, and the sides are very thick, so they're not crumbly and eating it doesn't result in a mess. She even uses expensive cheese as the main ingredient, so I was wondering if she was making a profit when she set the price at RM1.20 per piece (Standard price I've seen is around RM2 - RM3 and you don't even know the quality of the ingredients)

Now I can't decide which to get for my Mak Long.

To tell you the truth, we didn't help Izyan much during our stay. Like little kids, she gave us rejected cupcakes and we played with the multi-coloured icings and designed our own god awful monstrosities amateur designed cupcakes. On Sunday, before we left for UiTM, we made a friends-forever cupcake.


Lame as hell.

(But awfully pretty!)

Sunday, July 20, 2008

UiTM July 2008: Second Week

I've finally settled myself in UiTM and I can finally call myself an ACCA student. That is, if the results that come out in August shows that I didn't fail any papers. Things were hectic the first week and all, but I'm just bummed I'm not roommates with Izyan anymore.

Who else am I going to hug bigass adverts showcasing cancer-ladled food products with?



In fact, we're in different colleges. I'm now staying in Melati in which I'm dependent on either Rapid KL or the internal UiTM bus to get me to class. I'm ecstatically spending the mornings missing at least 3 buses because in Malaysia, queuing up for the bus apparently gives you malevolent cancer on vital organs and increases the chances of your uncle's cousin's husband being a sodomizing homosexual. I'm also thrilled by the pungent smell of rotten carcass and cheap Chow Kit generic perfumes that waft gently from everyone's armpits.

Basically, after evening classes, I'd just hang at Izyan's room because I still consider her my best friend, and, well, because she has lots of junk food. Our friendship is strengthened by the amount of junk food I get to swipe from her stash. This is also to avoid the massive human traffic at the bus stop. It's simple math, really. It's a choice between;

a) Half an hour of damning your ability to smell peoples' stained armpits, overhearing conversations of 'Gedik' this, 'Tau takper' that, missing three buses and making it on the fourth overflowing one in which I get to molest some pretty nice girls you witness potential harassment lawsuits right before your eyes, or;

b) Steadily decreasing Izyan's weekly ration of junk food.

Oh by golly gee. Whichever should I choose.

I didn't, however, appreciate the point in which she basically called me a retard when I visited her room for the first time.

"You didn't bring any soap or shampoo?!"

"Nope."

"Seriously? Then how are you going to shower and all?"

"I dunno. Don't really care. Borrow someone's soap and shampoo, maybe?"

"That's all you didn't bring, right? Then you can have some of mine."

"That's nice... but I also didn't bring toothbrush, toothpaste, pants (except for the one I'm wearing) and I only have about two shirts for class."

"What the hell..."

"I couldn't bring too many bags, so I only brought necessary items."

"Those things ARE necessary items!"

"They're luxury items to me."

"...Then what exactly did you bring?"

"My laptop, burner, IDE to USB cable, harddisk, Zune player, blank DVD+Rs, mouse, laptop cooler... and oh, a towel and bed sheets." :D

"Oh wow, You remembered to bring bed sheets, you idiot? I'm amazed."

"Dude I'm not THAT stupid. I even brought the matching pillow sheets."

"And did you remember to bring the pillows?"

"...OH SHIT."

There you have it. Main reason why Aziemah has been using a folded towel as her pillow.

To be honest with myself though, I'm starting to enjoy myself here. I'm pretty sure I didn't inhale or inject any strong narcotics into my bodily fluids to have me experiencing actual joy, so it must be because I'm temporarily insane.