Here's My Story

I can't remember the last time I ever bought earphones until recently. Probably never lol. For past few years, my earphones would break down in the same fashion: one side stopped working. So I decided to get a new one and chanced it by buying a cheap RM 5.90 one from Daiso with a mechanism to easily rolled its wire after use, for ease of storage.

However, it didn't last long. Again, one side stoppe working. It's ok, it was cheap. So this time I bought a moderaly price pair, RM 15, at a gadget speciality shop, that came with a month warranty (was told when about to pay).

 The English is fine, right? However, right at the bottom, there's this:


Such a wild difference! "Everlasting Pain"?!

Ban guessed that the first set of instructions was copied from elsehwere. What do you think?

The first time I registered an account with Domino was probably last year at Butterworth. I helped my sister to order for the entire household.

One day, during MCO, I suddently thought of ordering pizzas. It just happened that I planned, with Ban's agreement, to have them on a Tuesday, without knowing that there were Super Tuesday deals where two coupons were available for pizzas at less than half their prices: one for regular and the other for personal. Lucky!

Right after I paid for them online, I received two emails, one of which was titled "FREE 1 Personal Pizza for New Web registration Reward Credited to Your Account". Strange.

So we decided to have pizza again on next Tuesday. Curiously, I received the same email! Lol. It happened again on the third Tuesday.

I guess we'll be having pizza every Tuesday 😄

Results as compared to more than 4 months ago:

                                Jan 2020        May 2020          Ref. range
Total cholesterol           5.6                 6.3                  < 5.2
HDL ("good")               2.34              1.70                > 1.04
LDL ("bad")                  3.0                4.1                 < 2.6
Triglycerides                 0.6                1.2                  < 1.7
Total/HDL ratio            2.4                 3.7                  < 5.0

MCO-induced results, as expected. I can't do my regular swimming. I was ill for more than a week a month ago, therefore didn't exercise at all then. Ok, coconut cake and pineapple tarts didn't help haha.

I still do 10-15 mins of mainly strength exercise in the morning and 30 mins of yoga in the afternoon on most days, and participate in 60 - 90 mins of yoga session that's conducted via FB Live like 4 times a month. Imagine those people who only exercise outdoor or at gym but couldn't do so during this MCO. They should undergo health check.

The significant decrease in HDL is probably due to absense of fish oil: finished the one that my aunt gave. Hmmm should I resume?

I will take fenofibrate everyday, instead of on alternate days, for the next three months before retest.

I saw this on FB, highly recommended by a relative, and I was already thinking of getting a cake to munch on as snack. I ordered it from Justinia Yong, despite its apparent pricey tag but it was fairly priced if compared to those sold by cake speciality shop, which was a fair comparison it turned out to be.

It was delicious! Quite soft, and not so creamy. It was filling though and that was the problem for me: Ban doesn't eat much cake and I had a whole cake that was sliced into like 12-15 pieces. Furthermore, it was best consumed within 3 days (with refrigeration) but assured by its baker that it could last 5 days, which it did for me.

I had to give away more than half of it to Ban's parents, their friend, and Ban's and my mutual friend, simonlover, who helped me quite a bit in relation to my parents' health.

I decided not to order it again because of the task of finishing it but about a week later, Justinia posted on FB that, due to many requests, she decided to give the option of 3 slices. Wahhhhh.

Chicken is generally the cheapest meat in Malaysia, Singapore and, surprisingly, in Australia. Second cheapest is pork, in all those countries too.

Ban and I prefer chicken to pork but we're getting a little sick with it lately haha. Problem is that it's far easier to cook chicken. I myself tried to mix it up during this MCO by replacing it with salmon, prawn, porkball and fishball.


Ban was inspired by my idea: he stir-fried chicken that was marinaded overnight with Maggi curry powder seasoning. We had lots of those because his preferred way of eating instant noodle (he sometimes have it for supper) is to use Bovril, rather than the seasonig that comes with it.

It was delicious, as expected, so much so that he did it again later hahaha. I don't like food with added MSG and so my sister suggested an alternative: bottled seasoning from Masterfoods. I bought the "All Purpose" seasoning for Ban to use and it was equally delicious! Yay!

Incidentally, Ban prefers breast meat but I don't like it because it tends to be dry. One trick that I learned from my mum and sister is to marinade it with cornflour and a little bit of oil. It works each time and Ban doesn't mind it. Phew.



It was a long time since I cooked stir-fried oyster sauce chicken, with some light and dark soy sauce. It looked really delicious but unfortunately it turned out to be underseasoned. It might be also a little oily for Ban :(


Simplified version of Oyakodon, as suggested by my sister. Quite nice actually. It was appetising. I will cook this again.

About two months of taking the increased dosage of flunarizine (7.5mg), my mum's dizziness had finally became a non-issue. Yay! In her own words: "Mum doesn't suffer from migraine, headache and giddiness so frequently".

It was quite evident to us that she was much better: she helped me to clear the things that my parents brought from Seremban to Butterworth, she cleared my dad's stuff in their room on her own, she could drive to shop (but we did it for her instead because she was in the highest risk group of being infected by Covid-19), she was much more active in our family WhatsApp group, she was back to regularly chatting over the phone with my aunty in US, and she even cooked.

Next issue is her back/waist pain, which is currently managed with Norgesic 1-2 times day. It's better managed now after she regularly practised a pose that I recommended.

I really hope this improvement is permanent.

Ban and I took turns to shop for grocery and cook i.e. whoever shopped, he also cooked for the next few meals (started at 2 meals but increased to 3 later). The other person would be in charge of storing the grocery and, for the new few meals, washed dishes, wiped table and stove (I had been helping to do the last one all the time). We cooked only for dinner. For lunch, we bought food from our favourite chap fan shops.


This was, in my opinion, an improvement over the previous one in terms of rolling but replaced avocado with egg. Yum! Always love this meal.



Ban's mum passed us some fresh prawns (they were alive when she received them @@). I then seek advice from my family on how best to cook them. I followed my mum's recipe: "Marinade with white sauce, black sauce and sugar. Can be overnight. Then fry some garlic. Fry the prawn. Put a little water and stir fry till dry. Taste adjust as you please."

I believed I got the technique right but not enough seasoning. Fortunately, the sweetness of the prawn was more than enough to make it a delicious dish.