Here's My Story

Despite the delicious deep fried prawns we made, we still didn't know how to make them closer to the typical Japanese prawn tempura. One day, after Ban ordered soba with prawn tempura as a side, I jokingly asked the waiter (he recognised us as regular customers) at Sushi Tei for permission to watch the chef cook the prawn dish for a nominal fee of RM 1 😁 Quite surprisingly, a few minutes later, he returned to us and gave us a tip: drizzle the batter on top of the prawns while frying them. This method was validated when we examined the prawn tempura that was served: the thicker 'fluffy' flour was only on one side. Later, Ban watched a couple of videos on how chefs do it. One of them did drizzle the batter while frying. Furthermore, a tip from her was to make a few small incisions at the top and bottom of the prawns. So the next time we cook, we incorporated both tips and here's the result: Yes, they still curled up because we didn't bother to remove their spines. T...

The actuary I'm working with plans to retire in about a decade time and offered to give his business to me during a period of transition. I was flattered but declined the offer. He took it well and thanked me for the help I've given and will be giving in future until he retires. Among my response was the following: My dad practised a healthy lifestyle. He ate right, exercised daily and socialised frequently. Except when he was much younger, he didn't smoke and he drank only occasionally. When he was aged 60+, I even boldly predicted that he would live to at least 80+ and possibly to 90, especially given that my grandfather managed to live that old. Yet, despite these, he was taken away by cancer at the age of 73. This got me thinking about my life.......given the myriad of ill-health conditions I have, the period of good quality of life may even be shorter than that. There are things I want to do and more actuarial work isn't one of them. Hence my decision. Also, I don...

Turned out that my sister was a bear?! This is the second crusade called by the Pope. I didn't want Kingdom of Jerusalem and so I was mulling who to nominate as my beneficiary when I noticed my beary sister. For the fun of it, I wish to propagate the Bear culture. Unfortunately, she had only two daughters. Though they were still young, they hadn't had any sons. I married them off matrilineally. I just wanted to do well enough to get my sister demense within the kingdom and so was shocked that I contributed the most! So all hail the Beary Queen of Jerusalem.

One day, as we were about to leave our capark lot, a couple of strangers, with masks on, walked past. Not sure who initiated it: the result was a spontaneous waving and greeting between them and I. When we were in the car... Ban: Who are they? Me: Oh, I thought that guy was SF but I don't who the gal is. Ban: SF? Doesn't look like him. Me: Oh?......Wait: ya hor, he lives in a different block. Alamak, then why they waved at me. Ban: ......   The next time we bumped into them, after the exchange of waves... Me: Maybe they're that couple with the talkative child. Ban: No lah. Me: The woman's figure seems to be the same. The man, though, is a little different.   After the third encounter... Me: Alamak, it's not the woman. She's not wearing mask and so I can tell she's not the mum of that child. Then who on earth are they? Ban: I don't know. Me: *laughs* One day, we might need to confesss. "Errr, sorry ar, who are you? How do you know us? Ban: *laughs*

One day I noticed that I could press claim of a courtier for the Duchy of Lesser Poland. I checked that the ruler didn't have many allies and the one I most worried about was my tributary vassal. So I landed that courtier and then declared war. I lost to him previously and so I was careful to think through many times when considering waging holy war. Heck, previous loss wasn't even a holy war lol. He had many allies. This time I noticed he was in like 3 wars, one of which was a huge one. I guessed that his allies might not be incline to join in defending him another war and so I declared holy war for the Duchy of Greater Poland. I was winning the war when he suddenly saw salvation in God and converted to Catholic. Grrrr. Apparently him turning Catholic didn't mean there was a truce and so I could declare war on him again, just not a holy one. Thank goodness for my spare baronies (most of my demense had spare empty holdings): I granted one to a claimant of the entire High Ch...

My sister's former house had lots of mosquitos from late evening onward. Their presence was obvious especially in bathroom. One day, Ban randomly bought this to deal with it: It worked well! We sometimes used it at our home as well, especially at where we're using our laptops. It's quite expensive compared to conventional insecticide because of its much smaller size but it's worth it to deter pesky mosquitos.

The pain that started more than 12 years ago never went away completely. Once a while, it came back but it would be gone by the next day after some leg strengthening exercise (bend and straighten it repeatedly) and some rest. However, starting September last year, it took longer and longer to go away until one day, it just never did 😢 Fortunately, the pain occurs mainly when I'm walking downstairs. I noticed it when doing leg strengthening exercise too. When it occurs, the pain level is between 3 and 5. So overall, my daily routine is largely not affected. I forgot that the symptom this time, pain right within the middle of knee cap, is different than that two decades ago when I was diagnosed with osteoathritis on the knee. Hence, I wanted to get back on glucosamine (with chondroitin and MSM) which helped my knee to recover then before I approached an orthopaedic, since they probably would just say, "Have you tried glucosamine which helped you two decades ago?" The loc...

Germany was at war on two fronts and so I was hoping to conduct a quick war to claim a county (part of Kingdom of Pomerania and, hence, Wendish Empire) on behalf of a vassal, whom I gave a demense for this purpose. Conclusion: I failed miserably haha. Had to surrender in the end. Once again the Kingdom of Italy landed on my lap. I gave it some serious thoughts. Maybe just destroy the title to avoid the "desire for Kingdom of Italty" opinion penalty with the dukes there? In the end, though, I decided not to keep it. Too hard to defend.

Me: Let's go to Centrepoint to get dinner. We then can go to Jaya Grocer to get gas lighter and your Weetbix. Bla bla bla ...... Ban: Huh? Me: Let's go to Centrepoint. Think that's all you need to know. Ban: Yeah! Bagus! 👍 😂

Mage Knight is still one of our favourite boardgames. In a recent game, this happened for the first time ever 😄: Ban burnt down three monasteries @@, whereas I increased my reputation dramatically due to battling multiple enemies using the Advance Action card 'Chivalry'.