Homemade Vietnamese Spring Rolls
Sometimes when Hubby goes out on his own either for work or with a friend (which is not a frequent occurrence), he would buy me Vietnamese Spring Rolls from the TNT Supermarket as a sign of his love for me 
. The rolls come with a peanut dip. Then one day I thought that maybe it would be better to make it myself and cheaper too!
First, I soaked the rice noodles in boiling hot water for a bit and drained them. Then I boiled the shrimps. I then dipped the dried skins in water and lay them on the counter top to soak through. Hubby finally put all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together and voila! the rolls are done! The peanut dip was made from blended peanuts, olive oil, oyster sauce and a lil hot water.
The first batch we made had no greens in them...
(Hubby says: "WOOHOO!!! No vegetables!!!" *cheering*)
Yikes! Forgot the greens!
(Hubby still says: WOOHOO!!! NO GREENS!!!)
The second time we made them, I remembered the greens. All is good!
(Hubby groans!)
Dressed just right...
(Hubby wails!)
Getting Your HP LaserJet 1020 to Work with Windows 7
Ah, my very first laser printer in a long time. I had owned an Epson Stylus 880 and a HP 5740 inkjet printer awhile back. The former started giving me problems with clogged print head nozzles (I had tried to clean it but could never get it to print properly again, even with a new alternative cartridge), while the latter gave me problems with refilled cartridges. No idea what went wrong. I just know that I had spent quite a bit of money replacing the cartridges (and experimenting with ink refilling), and I wasn't about to spend another dime and time trying to figure out the problem.
So enter another printer into my life... the HP LaserJet 1020 after much research (and after discovering a source for affordable toner refills, as well as for alternative toner cartridges). Worked like a pro when it was still on Windows XP. Still performed like a champion when it finally made the upgrade to Windows 7... once I managed to get it WORKING that is! *groan* While I can tell you to contact HP for support (like as if that will be a fat lot of help when HP supposedly considers the printer too outdated to bother with a proper driver installation for Win7 *rolls eyes*), it's a lot faster and more productive for me to just post the solution here. So keep your fingers crossed, and follow the instructions below to get it functioning again:
1) Download the driver at...
HP LaserJet 1020 Driver Package for Windows 7
2) Unzip the contents to a temporary folder and DO NOT CLICK ANYTHING ELSE!
3) That also means *DO NOT RUN* SETUP.EXE.
4) I REPEAT. *DO NOT RUN* SETUP.EXE.
5) I REPEAT AGAIN. *DO NOT RUN* SETUP.EXE. The only way I found to get it working is by installing the driver MANUALLY! So go on to step 6.
6) Unplug the printer.
7) Uninstall the printer driver if it's on the computer.
8) Re-plug the printer back.
9) Add the printer.
10) Look for the driver under "Have Disk", and guide it to the temporary folder where you had unzipped the files earlier. The rest is self-explanatory.
A little bonus here for Canadian owners of a HP LaserJet 1020. You can get ink toner refills for cartridge Q2612A from http://www.inkpot.ca. I have personally ordered online from them the refills a number of times already, and it works awesome! And in case you're wondering, I'm not getting any commission mentioning this. Just the fact that I get to help a fellow human being save some money, and stick it to the greedy big time corporations at the same time, that's good enough for me. 
Have fun!
Indeo Video IV50 on Windows 7 Fix
Running into unnecessary problems trying to play a movie encoded with the accursed IV50 codec? I sure did. Some of my AVI videos were encoded with the Ligos Indeo XP Video codec awhile back via Pinnacle Studio 8.12.7, and has since stirred up a fuss trying to let me access them in Windoze 7. After much scouring the search results and tinkering and testing stuff, I believe I finally have that gremlin drawn and quartered.
First and foremost, you will need the Ligos Indeo Legacy Package (IV31, IV32, IV41, IV50, YVU9), which I believe is freeware according to my source. It will install Indeo Video codecs for 3, 4, 5, and Indeo Raw (YVU9). The filesize should be about 2,068,266 bytes. You can get it at...
Indeo Codecs Legacy Package (IV31, IV32, IV41, IV50)
Once installed, incredibly enough (believe it or not) you may still run into problems opening your IV50 encoded video. Why? That's because the Indeo installer FAILED (tch! tch!) to register the dll on Windows 7! Is it Indeo's fault, or WINDOZE SEVEN's fault, or BOTH? Who knows? Who cares? OK, I do, but that's a debate for another time. Right now I am itching to share the solution for the good of all mankind.
So go ahead and click that round Microsoft thingy at the bottom leftmost part of your desktop. Then click on All Programs followed by Accessories. Look for Command Prompt and right-click on it. Then click on Run as administrator. Helloooo, are you paying attention there? There's a reason why it's ITALICIZED and BOLDED! I cannot stress enough how *VERY* important this Run as administrator priviledge is, which is a very common problem in Windows 7 with some programs. Ignore it for this instance, and you will be smacked with a pop-up window out of nowhere happily informing you that "... the codec was loaded but the call to DllRegisterServer failed with the error code 0x8000ffff".
Assuming that you had followed the given instructions right down to the letter, you should be idling at the command prompt right now. Go ahead and type in the following:
regsvr32 ir50_32.dll
Press your Enter key, and voila, *hopefully* your problem should be solved. I know it did mine.
Happy New Year… and Microsoft bug!
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Yep, this is *my* year... the Year of the Tiger! 
It's been an interesting ride the last 4 days... eating (more like gorging on) wifey's freshly baked bread, researching on going to law school until one look at a sample of the LSAT pretty much gave me an endless headache that will rival me wifey's migraine. And of course, who can forget an annoying computer bug thanks to Microsoft's newest operating system, Windoze Seven. Just what I need to keep things interesting.
"The action can't be completed because the file is open in windows explorer."
Yeah... right. So, Explorer's got a chokehold on one of my files and wouldn't let me rename nor delete it. Yes, I have configured the permissions correctly, giving myself enough control to supposedly smash the file to smithereens if I should have wished it so. Unfortunately, it was all an illusion. How cruel of Microsoft. No matter. I still *smile* through it just as one of my many past martial art instructors had advised regardless of the circumstances. He taught me well. And through an enlightened peace of mind I discovered... tadaa... LOCKHUNTER.
Check out http://lockhunter.com
Unlocker has had its glory days with XP (thanks for the memories while it lasted), but this newest bomb of an atom literally tore Explorer's chokehold on my file to shreds, leaving the file finally at my mercy to do whatever I wanted to do with it. Here kitty kitty... HEY, where ya going? Wait till I get my hands on...
Sushi – California Rolls
Hubby has always been the one in charge of sushi, that is until I found a video showing "How to Prepare Perfect Sushi Rice" with Chef John Mitzewich. It absolutely put me in the spirit of doing just that. I also love California Rolls so that was going to be my project. Hubby picked out an avocado for me and we bought some imitation crab from the T&T Supermarket.
A few days later, I tried it out. I followed the recipe showed. I wasn't too sure about the amount of water though so added a bit more to mine. Wow, the rice came out really well, not mashed up. I didn't cut up the imitation crab, just microwaved them for a bit. I used two seaweed wraps cut into 2 and had four rolls. I learned a really good thing from this video "How to Make a California Roll" with Sushi Chef Lin. He had wrapped up his bamboo mat with cling wrap so no messy bamboo mats to clean now
So here are the California Rolls!
Lemon Chicken and Pork Pizza…
Wifey's version of Lemon Chicken. 
Lemon Chicken wifey's style. Prepared on August 14, 2009.
Pork Pizza with Tomato Paste.
Pork Pizza with Tomato Paste. We ran out of minced beef, so wifey thought to substitute it with pork! It was equally delicious. Prepared on August 26, 2009.
Pork Pizza sans tomato paste.
Another version of the Pork Pizza without tomato paste. Another mouth-watering version. Prepared on August 26, 2009.
The Moon…
The moon on August 9, 2009.
I was watching TV on August 9 when my eye wandered over to the patio, and then the sky, and lo and behold, a glorious sight of the moon! Alright, alright, it was just a moon. Heck, it could have been like any other moon on any other time of the week. But there was something about this moon on this particular night, so I went to grab my digital camera, set the exposure low, tried to hold it as steady as I could (with a little assistance from, the wall), and well, the result above speaks for itself. I had many other shots, but the way the moon and the clouds came together for this one made it the winning shot.
Putting on the calories… more foooood! :P
Cheese sticks by wifey!
Prepared on August 9. Cheesy sticks of bread.
Yummy pieces of smoked salmon.
Yummy piece of smoked salmon up-close.
Prepared on August 9 as well. I have always loved dried (jerky anyone?) and/or smoked meat, so wifey does spoil me from time to time.
Anderson’s Home-made Unagi Sushi Rolls… yummm :P
Yummy broiled eel and avocado encased in rice and seaweed.
Unagi is basically "broiled fresh water eel". I had prepared this delicacy on August 7, 2009. Yes, I am a big fan of Japanese food. Well I am a big fan of seafood in general, and an even bigger fan of anything roasted, broiled, fried, or barbequed! Yum! Anyway, the following is a quick list of ingredients used:
1 cup Sushi Rice (Kokuho Rose)
2 cups of water
2 Tbsp of Seasoned Rice Vinegar (Mitsukan)
6 sheets of roasted seaweed (Takaokaya Yakinori Tokusen)
1 Avocado
Broiled Fresh Water Eel
The Takaokaya roasted seaweed comes in an affordable pack of 50 sheets. I had bought it at T&T Supermarket in Metrotown awhile back.
Katanka Burger…
A little tribute to my late Yankton Sioux grandmother, Maria "Running Moccasins" Pearson, who adopted me as her grandson back in my university days in Ames, Iowa in 1995. Which reminds me. I still have to write on my experience traveling around with her. Anyway, buffalo meat,... yummy. Found two packs of ground buffalo meat at Buy Low Foods near my place on major offer. How did it end up? Well, check out the pics below. Wifey made a nice little patty with... err... well, wifey, you reading this, I let ya continue the talking, aye?
Buffalo meat drenched with home-made mayonaise.
A fully assembled buffalo burger. Excellent!
