Here's My Story

I renewed my passport recently. Heard some horror stories in recent years. So I researched online to find out exactly how it should be done. Turned out that while one could walk-in, the default SOP by the Immigration Department was to apply for it online and then collect in-person. I spent most of the time fiddling with the photograph. Otherwise, the whole process was quite a breeze. Collection took only 15 minutes. So here are the key points I would like to highlight: Go to the official website and read the guideline there. Everything is there. Follow it exactly and you should be fine. Get someone to take photograph of you with white background and in brightly-lit place. Of course you can cut-short the process by just going to a photo studio but make sure you tell them you're doing it to apply for Malaysia passport and that they should provide you digital copies of the photographs. If the background isn't white enough (like mine), use a software to replace background colour wi...

Recently we watched Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (go watch it!). As usual, I was the one who organised where, when and how. I wanted a morning screening such that we would have lunch right after that, at a suitable location of course. So I ended purchasing tickets at Starling Mall for screening at "Play" theatre. I had no clue then what sort of theatre it was but I did note tits unusually small size. When we got there, I discovered that it was a kids-friendly theatre. Interesting! Aside from the differences (compared to a normal theatre) shown in these photos, the lights were slightly dimmed, rather than switched off, during screening. I actually prefer that. Fortunately, there were no kids at that time haha. I expected them to be noisy if they were around. Great concept for family with kids. Parents wouldn't be as stressed in such theatre.

The Byzantine emperor died a few months after he lost Kingdom of Armenia to me and that ended the truce between us. The new emperor approached me with a marriage proposal and hence he was out of defensive pact. As usual, I declared war on him. Initially I was attracted to pressing a vassal's claim over the Duchy of Anatolia, which would net me 2 counties. However, I noticed that I needed just one more county to create the Kingdom of Thrace (a first for me) and so I pressed for another vassal's claim on Traianopolis. In the midst of war, I realised that my vassal, King of Crusader Egypt had earlier declared war on Byzantine for Nikomedia, which was a county of Thrace kingdom. I contemplated reloading and go for Anatolia duchy but I didn't because there might be a chance that he would not succeed. I, however, did prolong the war despite having achieved 100% war score in order to help him by whittling down the Byzantine armies as much as possible.   A caliph, who was a duke va...

Here are the average dividend yields on cost for shares that have paid out dividends: Share counters (2 of them) with no dividend yields just means that I have yet to receive at least a year's worth of dividends from these companies.  The overall dividend yield on cost weighted by invested amount is 4.9% (vs 4.8% in previous review), excluding the 2 share counters mentioned above. There are 16 share counters with dividend yield (on cost) less than 5% (number of consecutive years of this low yield in bracket): BOUSTEAD (5) (at 4.9%, it's very close to 5%) CAPLAND INTCOM T (2) COMFORTDELGRO (3) FRASERS L&C TR (1) IFAST (4) KEPPEL DC REIT (1) MAPLETREE LOG TR (1) MPLTR PAN TR (1) OCBC BANK (3) PARKWAYLIFE REIT (3) RAFFLES MEDICAL (1) SGX (3) SHENG SIONG (1) SIA ENGINEERING (5) SINGTEL (1) (at 4.9%, it's very close to 5%) UOB (5) The banks' dividend yields of 4+% are good enough for me, whereas SIA Engineering is on my watchlist to sell (3.7%). Here is the average co...

These are the shares that I initiated position in and sell since the last update about year ago :   Initiated in: (1) AEM (as recommended by The Smart Investor) " AEM is known in the industry as a leader in test innovation by providing comprehensive semiconductor and electronics test solutions. Customers receive customised, application-specific solutions tailored to their needs.  The group has a global presence..." Reasons to buy: A leader in Test 2.0 solutions Industry megatrends and increasing device complexity Growth in profitability and free cash flow Savvy acquisitions and partnerships   Exited: (1) Boustead Project Accepted Boustead Singapore's voluntary unconditional offer of takeover. I was afraid that it might be delisted with me being a minority shareholder. The fact that I'm also Boustead Singapore's shareholder meant this decision was easy to make. (2) Keppel Corp Dividend yield less than 4% for past 6 years. (3) Nordic Been on the "first to sell...

The doctor at the psychiatry clinic checked mum's hand tremor (she even noticed the slight tremor in her leg when the foot wasn't only half placed on the floor). She said that the tremor is probably affected by asenapine much greater than that by setraline. The problem is that my mum had already tried olanzapine, risperidone and clozapine. That was why they suggested asenapine even though at that time Penang GH didn't stock them i.e. we had to buy at retail pharmacy and it's expensive. My mum claimed that the physio exercise that the therapist taught her, to specifically help with the tremor, seems to be working: she is able to use spoon to eat without food being flung about. There's still tremor but lesser. The doctor said that there's a medicine that can help to control the tremor but they usually don't prescribe it to patients above aged 60 because it'll likely cause confusion in them. So, after discussing with the specialist, the doctor presented 3 ...

I think sometime in 2021, the Cow Brother stall at Taman Megah shuttered. So I didn't have Seremban beef noodle...until recently. Apparently KBN closed their outlet in Seremban (not 100% certain about this news) and opened one at Uptown. From Google reviews, it seems that the noodle was quite good and the most notable complaint was the use of QR code to order. We're used to ordering that way and so that's a non-issue. I had the "Mixed (3) Noodle", which had sliced beef, tendon and tripe. The meat was good: substantial and still juicy. Noodle and gravy texture were good. Adequate amount of pickled vegetable. There were just two issues: not enough peanuts and lack of some seasoning in the gravy (I don't know what exactly). The portion was much bigger than what I'm used to. I wished they had a smaller size. I think it's a little expensive even for PJ area. Maybe just below RM 20? The cheapeast was the sliced beef noodle at, iirc, RM 18.90. Ban also order...

I decided to trigger all defensive pacts to war upon Byzantine for the Kingdom of Armenia. My vassal count had a weak claim on the title and could only be pressed, in his case, if it was contested and it was! 28 rulers answered the Byzantine's emperor's call to aid him. Quite a number of them were in already involved in wars but a few of those were about to conclude. I was most concerned about the defense of my realm in the far east because I had far fewer levies there. The Mongols were free of war and so would probably try to siege my realm there. My initial priorities were to send armies to (1) siege Byzantine's capital, (2) siege Armenia's capital, and (3) defeat the huge stack of Byzantine's army that was warring upon Empire of Bulgaria. That war was about to conclude in the former's favour. Eeek.   It was easier than expected. The Mongols, despite answering the Byzantine's emperor's call, didn't raise any armies and so my far flung eastern realm...

In the past two months, I tried desserts at three places that were new to me: These were watermelon cake and Ferrero Roche meringue cake at Naj & Belle's outlet at Megah Rise Mall. The former was absolutely delicious and I had it a second time about a week later haha but it was expensive, priced at RM 25 net for a rather small portion. The combination of ingredient worked very well and it wasn't sickly sweet, the way I like it. The meringue cake though was too sweet for me. It was similar to pavlova but with the chocolate instead of the berries. Meringue is already sweet and so adding chocolate to it just doesn't work for me. This was classic souffle pancake at Souffle Dessert Cafe outlet at Damansara Uptown. It was my first time having souffle and how my eyes widened when I had my first bite haha. Soft and slightly sweet. The syrup wasn't needed, at least not by me or Ban. The cream and ice-cream were better accompaniment. A couple of friends said that the souffle ...

Won this crusade quite easily, with early preparation: 7 months in advance :D  Since the Pope was my vassal, I chose the stance of taking all the titles for myself. I thought long and hard on who to grant it to. Preferably vassal of my dynasty and yet not too far from their current realm. If just based on the latter, then it should be the King of Cumania. I thought of giving it to the King of Germany so that he could expand the realm. Both France and Germany, largest and third largest realms within my empire, were dormant in expansion for ages because they had no feasible land to conquer. In the end, I granted it to the King of Al-Jazira.  To my delight, I discovered that I could change the succession law. So I changed it from Agnatic Gravelkind to Agnatic Primogeniture before giving away the kingdom. At least for one more generation, my vassal's realm was intact. His primary title's succession law was Agnatic-Cognatic Gravelkind. Haiz. All others were on Agnatic-Cognatic Pri...