Rubenerd

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

Pretty ^_____^

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

ohfuckyeahmemes:

http://ohfuckyeahmemes.tumblr.com

Check out my blog and follow if you want at http://geniusinbloom.tumblr.com/ !

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

zombieplan:

What.

XD

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

Lunch! ^_______^

This post originally appeared on the Annexe, in a post series pointlessly documenting every train I took.

T24 from Town Hall to Bardwell Park

Today's Wikipedia photo of the day is a photo of a rambutan by Muhammad Mahdi Karim. For your consideration, an entirely pointless post of nostalgia!

Moving to The Singapores

When my family first moved to Singapore when I was a small child, I had no idea what to expect. We'd watched plenty of travel shows about the city state and the introductory videos my dad's company had sent us in the mail, but videos and travel books and whatnot simply can't prepare you, even though arguably Singapore is the most Western country in Asia!

Funny story, I was sitting at Starbucks in the city here yesterday, and I overheard a guy commenting that Singaporean girls and guys make better partners than Japanese because they speak English. I made no comment.

Anyway for the first few years as a kid I absorbed very little Singapore culture and cuisine. For better or worse depending on your point of view, Singapore makes it very easy to live as a Westerner and never experience anything Asian; its actually quite a contentious issue when you talk about so called "foreign talent" to some local people. You can understand why.

Omnomnom!

For some reason though around the time I turned 14, something inside me clicked and I started to change. Suddenly I wanted to explore and try new things! I turned off the cable TV and started watching local TV shows, I started going to public libraries and mingling with local people instead of sitting at the Australian International School library, and I started trying local food.

My parents had always had a huge obsession with Indonesian food, art, music, dance and culture which gave me a gentle introduction, but by the end of the year I'd tried Shanghai noodle bars, Cantonese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese and Malay. My mouth is watering remembering all this stuff, if you want to try the absolute best Asian AND Western food, its ALL in Singapore, let me tell you :).

Anyway I belabour all this to tell you about the rambutan. They're slightly larger than the Wikipedia picture would have you believe, but they're still fairly small. Surrounding the fleshy middle which is almost the consistency of a grape but without the skin, is the hairy outer part that's surprisingly thick. They're really sweet and delicious!

I tried my first rambutans in fruit salads, but I started eating them in their own right after I turned 14, and soon developed a small obsession. I confess to liking lychees a little more now (especially in bubble tea!) but I still have a soft spot for them. You could say… a sweet spot!

End with The Wikipedias

Given I started this post with a rambutan photo from Wikipedia, it only seems fitting to end it with a Wikipedia quote from the rambutan article!

The rambutan is a medium-sized tropical tree in the family Sapindaceae, and the fruit of this tree. It is native to Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, Sri Lanka and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, although its precise natural distribution is unknown. It is closely related to several other edible tropical fruits including the Lychee, Longan, and Mamoncillo. It is believed to be native to the Malay Archipelago, from where it spread westwards to Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka and India; eastwards to Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia. The name rambutan is from the Malay/Indonesian word rambutan, which literally means hairy caused by the ‘hair’ that covers this fruit, and is in general use in Indonesia, Malay and Filipino.

There is a second species regularly for sale at Costa Rican markets which is known as “wild” rambutan. It is a little smaller than the usual red variety and is colored yellow. The outer skin is peeled exposing the fleshy fruit inside which is then eaten. It is sweet, sour and slightly grape like and gummy to the taste. In Costa Rica, it is known as mamón chino due to the likeness of the edible part with Melicoccus bijugatus and its Asian origin.

So there you go :).

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

Haha ahhhh dogs ;)

Despite Dave Winer being an arsehole to me several times (I wear it as a badge of honour!), I have no qualm with saying he answers the question about Julian Assange's agenda pretty damn well (Does Assange Have An Agenda?).

Mr Assange and plenty of other people at Wikileaks and other sites are just doing what "news" organisations are supposed to be doing, instead of just being paid off, glorified subsidiaries of special interest groups, political parties and companies.

Those "news" organisations have been caught with their pants down, and they're understandably embarrassed and frustrated. Its harder for news to be curated and manufactured to fit a preferred narrative to condition readers and viewers when independent sources keep messing it up with facts.

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

lookandlookagain:

Ai Weiwei (born 1957) is a Chinese artist, curator, architectural designer, social commentator, and activist.

This post originally appeared on the Annexe.

wevegonecompletelymad:

So Queensland was hit with massive floods not long ago, and in less the 5 hours it will be hit by a cyclone. If you’re struggling to grasp the magnitude of Tropical Cyclone Yasi, consider this: it is so large it would almost cover the United States.