This being Halloween weekend, but this being the University of Chicago, all of us naturally have something to do. With only the non-job seekers remaining in Chicago for the weekend, the rest of the job-hunters having gone to New York to scare the interviewers and be scared too, it was left to Andy, Xuda, Dazhou, Yihan and me to have our own quiet Halloween dinner on Saturday. I apologize for the lack of pictures, but you've gotta realize you have 5 guys who have absolutely under-utilized cameras, and absolutely bo chap attitudes toward photo-taking while eating and talking. So there you have it, it's just gonna be words for now. Andy prepared some pasta, lovely it tasted, tho I'm not really an Italian food kinda guy, but it was good nonetheless. Xuda did his beef stew - his secret recipe which he refused to divulge ... lucky it was good so nobody complained. Dazhou roasted a chicken ... I think that's like the 3rd one this quarter, but all of his roasted chicken are simply delicious, all with different flavors each time, but all so finger-lickin' good. Who needs KFC? Yihan did some chicken with honey, anise, and some other spices whose names I didn't manage to catch, and even if I did, won't remember cos it's too laborious. For me, for once, I actually went to check up on some recipes online, and decided that the beef recipes under the yancancook site were simplest and so cannot go wrong ... tho you'll be amazed by how many times I say this and yet they still go wrong, eg. unique chicken. That's why it was called unique rite? So I prepared tomato beef ... didn't have tomatoes, so I made do with tomato ketchup. The trick to this now, I just realized, is that you have to find a good and realistic substitute for a missing ingredient, and not like no ginger, so dun use anything at all, or no sugar so use salt. Now I think about it, our cooking has really been amazing this past year. So it was good dishes to start with. And to top it off, we had 4 good bottles of white wine ... and good conversation among 5 good friends. Really, who needs loud Halloween parties and weird costumes, when you can just be yourself and enjoy a good evening in the comfort of your home? In retrospect, this has been the most solemn entry for some time. It's tough to imagine me with a serious face rite? And Serene was saying on Friday, after looking at the pics, I look like a little boy ..............

So was browsing through the Leeds United site just now (in case you people haven't realized, Leeds United is listed as frenz too), and thought I would buy this navy blue hooded jacket. I really think it's cool, but I'll hold on for now, and maybe buy sometime later in the week. Sometimes, you realize you dun really need these spur-of-the-moment stuff, but I do need some other sweater besides my Nike one.