Here's My Story

Apparently, this is a unique dish in Butterworth. In fact, I have not seen it sold anywhere else. I was looking at all the food available at a particular hawker centre when I came across this. I was curious and decided to try it. It cost RM4, which I understand is a normal price for zhi cha over there. That's really considered cheap compared to KL (usually at least RM6). It has a mixture of the yellow noodle and mee hoon. The gravy was good enough i.e. didn't wow me but tasty. What made this dish interesting was the variety of ingredient it had: liver, prawn, fishcake, pork and leafy vegetables. Definitely worth the money spent. Now, if only I remember which hawker centre it was lol.

There was once my sister realised and summarised the difference between how she and husband handle crisis: she prefers pre-crisis while he prefers post-crisis. Basically, pre-crisis management means trying to minimise the chance of that crisis happening while post-crisis means managing the effects of the crisis after it happens. I thought that was a neat summary and initially thought that it also approximately describes a difference between Ban and me too. As an example, when I have appointment with friends at an unknown place, I will look or ask for the exact address, look up on Google maps for the route and then if needed, take a look at my GPS device to determine whether it recognises that address or do I need to fudge the address entry around to get it to work. All these done hours before I depart. As for Ban, if the address is somewhat familiar, he'll do nothing until he sets off. While driving, if he feels that he needs help, then only will he look at the GPS device and...

(continuing from Part 1 ) Based on the same reasons outlined in Part 1, my first ruler was an Irish ruler and this time, I chose Dublin county so that I had access to galleys at the start. I customised the ruler so that he was of the House of Zee Mau :) Alas, I forgot to customise the house's emblem and therefore it is now the same as an Irish noble house *grumble grumble*. I learned a couple of things: Swedish and Norwegian counties can be good places to start. It is still harder than Irish because I believed there are already the Kingdom of Sweden and Kingdom of Norway at the start but should be easier than, say, France or Spain because of lack of huge threat...until possibly when the Golden Horde appears centuries later. It's not really a good idea to design your ruler as young as possible because he may outlive your sons and that causes quite a number of problems, notably your sons wanting to assassinate your ruler! This may ease the pressure of piling negative trai...

Since my last post on my successful game (albeit on easy difficulty), I did create a ruler using the Ruler Designer DLC on normal difficulty but didn't get far with it as I was into other games at that time. I picked it up again a few months ago. By then, there were some changes via patches - notably the technological advancement and creation of duchies. Instead of merely emphasising which technology you wish to pursue the most, you now accumulate points (need to be at least a duke/duchess to generate these plus gains from your spy's study of technology in other counties) and then you periodically direct the points to whichever technology you want to advance. Previously, you need at least 50% of the counties to create the duchy title. Now you need 51%. This is a good improvement because previously, if you hold 1 out of 2 counties in a duchy, there will be regular usurping of title between you and the ruler of the other county. Now, for a 2-county duchy, you have to contr...

How does one be a fancy customer to use this carpark bay? Lots of bling bling?

Johnny Rockets is an American restaurant that serves chiefly burgers. Back in October 2013, they opened the first branch in Malaysia at The Curve. While Ban and I looked at the menu, we were a little disturbed by the sudden increase in the volume of music. I was thinking that we may need to order and eat quickly until we realised the reason (for the loud music) was for this: Oh yes, they were performing a dance to the customers outside. Catchy song :) I was amused though I don't think Ban was. He would probably prefer it to be a little quieter...right? We ordered the following: The hot dog meat was good but unfortunately there was too much sauce. Thank goodness the fries were unsalted. Ban had this...whatever this was lol. Sorry, it was a while back and evidently I was busy eating instead of taking notes :) He wasn't impressed with it. It was normal and certainly was not worth the price. Similarly for this chocolate milkshake. It was normal and so w...

It's been nearly a year since I posted about the my car petrol usage. How timely. The "Before" and "After, similar to previous post, is cost before and after the oxygen sensor was fixed respectively. Subsequently, there was an increase in petrol price by RM0.20 per litre, solely due to cut in government subsidy. Doesn't seem to be much difference among the three, is there? The average cost for "Before", "After" and "Petrol increase" is RM14.5/km, RM15.2/km and RM15.4/km respectively. It's quite strange that the average cost is higher after the repair compared to before lol but then again I don't know what's the margin of error and so not sure how significant the difference is. The increase cost after increase in petrol price is expect. Interestingly, the cost of "After" and "Petrol increase" are more stable than "Before". I suspect this is because my driving routine is more predictab...

This was taken from the article " Much ado about swine " on The Star Online, 27 January 2014. To recap, you are entitled to take offence. Your neighbours are entitled to eat whatever they want. You have no right to demand not to be offended.  This episode is symptomatic of a larger problem of a misguided sense of entitlement that the majority is entitled to deny the rights of the minority on the basis of "sensitivities" and to "protect" the minorities. This is not how democracy works. Democracy is not practice of majority rights taking precedence over minority rights. In a democracy and even more so in a nation with a constitution, minority rights are guaranteed and must be upheld. Not to be trampled on at the pleasure of the majority.  Let us continue to sow the seeds of tolerance for the future. If we do not arrest this misguided sense of entitlement that a significant portion of us labour under, we will surely see more and more of similar "ba...

After targeting this place for sometime, Ban and I finally managed to try this as part of our try-new-food-once-a-week endeavour. The steamed kampung chicken (RM13.90) was not bad especially since we ordered chicken breast meat. Its sauce was good. The chicken soup tasted like it should (rather the run-of-the-mill kind of salty soup); it possibly could be genuine i.e. without artificial flavouring. The complimentary spicy and sour mixed vegetable soup was sufficiently rich. It was less sour than kiam chai (salted vegetable) soup and it spiciness was a little potent for my liking (which, admittedly, doesn't say much since I can't take too spicy food hehehe). The kailan (Chinese broccoli) was fresh, a little crunchy and had the right amount of sauce. It was excellent. The stewed marinated tofu and egg (RM4.80) was light in taste. I preferred a little heavier, especially with respect to the egg. The pandan chendol had a peculiar sweetness. It was more sweet than ...