Here's My Story

Since I bought ginger, I cooked the ginger version of the chicken wing cooked previously . So the difference was, aside from substituting garlic with ginger, more light soy sauce compared to oyster sauce and more watery. I also used more ginger than I normally would to manage the "meaty smell" that Ban doesn't like.  He definitely prefered this over the garlic version. I loved the sauce so much that next day I made dry noodle dish with it :) When I next cooked this, it was using chicken breast and so as expected, he loved it even more. As a compromise, I marinated it with, among others, cornflour and a little oil so that it would taste dry. It's a keeper, for sure. The world's first weirdly shaped salmon cucumber avocado maki hahaha. I thought I could short cut the process by using larger strips of cucumber. Ok, I basically sliced it into two halfs longitudinally. Well, not going to do this again :D

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 stopped 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")            ...

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...

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 pre...

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 next 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...

Three days after throwing my dad's ashes into the sea, I flew back to PJ but unfortunately not without some huge hassle. It's hard to get Grab at my sis's place to go to airport (I nearly missed my flight previously) and so I usually order GrabTaxi in advance but cannot be done during this MCO (can't think why). Fortunately, they confirmed (I contacted them via FB messenger; there was no phone number to call them) that I shouldn't have problem getting one for my journey but just give it 15 mins grace to account for roadblocks. I arrived at airport early, about 75 minutes before my 11.30am flight. Strangely, the counters had't opened. When it was close to 11am, I couldn't wait any longer and started enquiring, ending up at Firelfy's office. To my horror, they told me that my flight was postponed (more like shifted) to 5.50pm, that was nearly 7 hours away! Me: Why wasn't I notified? Staff: We emailed and sent sms. Me: I didn't receive th...

Whenever people cast aspersion on insurance companies' conduct, I always tell them about my family's experience with Great Eastern Life . Upon my dad's demise , I started the process of claiming insurance payment from his life insurance policy. These were the required documents as stated on Great Eastern Life website: The main issue then was death certificate: the National Registration Department ("NRD") was close during MCO (their official website confirmed this), which was shocking to me because that would mean there were illegal babies born in Malaysia, right? I made sure I got everything else. I stopped reading at "Additional requirements for Accidental Death", which wasn't relevant to me but that meant I missed reading "Additional requirements for Death due to Natural Causes (Illnesses)". Yikes. More on this later. At that time, I had a couple of main questions, which I asked them over the phone: (1) Was it possible to sub...