Here's My Story

I have adverse reaction to pseudoephedrine but I was hoping that medicine like Clarinase, which has both decongestion (pseudoephedrine) and antihistamine (loratadine), can work for me than just antihistamine alone. I tried during the day and like the cough syrup that has pseudoephedrine , it made me drowsy. I risked it to take it at night the nex day. The good news was that it didn't cause me RLS. The bad news was that it was awake the whole night. It was the same the next time I took it @@ Oh, well, that's too bad. I gave it to my mum: it works well for my mum's rhinitis.

During the 4-month period after the previous appointment , mum continued to improve her walking: she could walk further and further. At the end of it, she could walk for half an hour without any pain. However, because she was forbidden to squat, she had been doing physio exercises on her bed (firm mattress) instead of on a mat on the floor which would have required her to temporarily squat when getting up. During the appointment, based on the information from Dr Tan (some of them were a response to our queries), mum doesn't need to use the back brace support any longer, she can temporarily bend forward (e.g. when picking things up), even better with knees bent, and she can temporarily squat when getting up from, say, the mat after exercising. He encouraged mum to gradually increase the duration of her walk to aim for an hour of walking without discomfort.  He said that it's likely the next appointment, in 6 months time, will be last. I think he's making sure the bones have ...

Sushiya is one of my favourite restaurants at One Utama and also one of my favourite Japanese restaurants. The food is delicious but expensive. Since we seldom go to One Utama, I tend to dine there when we are there. One day, after I got home from dining there, I discovered that their bill was incorrect: they applied SST on the service charge, which shouldn't be the case. So, I lodged complaint with KPDN via ezAdu since there was action taken the last time concerning Nichiya Ramen although admittedly for different reason. Later, a KPDN officer called me with regard to this complaint. Despite praising me for doing the right thing, he said that SST-related issues were under Malaysia Customs Dept's jurisdiction, not theirs. I mistakenly told him that I successfully lodged similar complaint earlier this year but he still advised me to approach Customs. I tried to google to get the correct contact to lodge complaint with Customs but all of them were for retailers/companies, not or...

Months ago, I had been curious about this shop. It looked like a drinks and cake shop shop. There wasn't any menu outside or on its window/door and so I couldn't be sure. One day, a menu stand appeared outside and I noticed that they also served Western food, some of it were suitable for Ban and I. I kept forgetting to try it until I noticed that there was 10% discount for Butterworth resident. I still forgot thereafter haha but one day, I remembered because I told my nephew we were going there for dinner after picking him up from school. He's a Butterworth resident :) The pasta was delicious. The taro cake was yummy. Unfortunately, the food was a little small even for a small eater like me and it was expensive too.. The cake helped to bridge the gap but it's just not feasible to always have expensive cake to do that :D Food was definitely insufficient for Ban and so since then we have not been back there.

 

Me: Next time I'll try kopi C tanpa gula. Ban: Yes, tambah gula. Me: TANPA, not tambah. Ban: Tambah gula is the bagus. 😅

When GX Bank started, they offered 3% p.a. interest rate on its saving accounts, with interest credited on a daily basis. That was way better than what CIMB offered then. Yes, I could physically go to a CIMB branch to negotiate for higher rate for a FD placement but I would need to go back there again once it matures to again negotiate for a higher rate than normal. Troublesome. So I shifted fund to GX Bank and enjoyed those high saving rate. I was prepared to transfer them back to CIMB should they offer high rate. Few months later, earlier than expected, GX Bank announced that starting 1st Oct, the interest rate would be lowered to 2% p.a. So, I checked CIMB FD rates. As an example of what I found, the interest rate for a 6-month FD was 2.6%. What caught my eye, however, was promotional rate for 6-month FD-i (Maturity Returns): 3.6! What is FD-i? There are 3 forms of it but the common features are  they are all offered by CIMB Islamic Bank,  profit rate instead of intere...

In the past, each time Citibank charged me annual fee, I always wrote to them, using the secured mailbox (DBS made it easier: press "0" on their hotline or just talked to their digibot), that I would like them to waive the fee and that I would give up the bonus points that was normally given upon renewal. The latter was something I learnd from them the first time I asked for waiver. This year, however, I received this message even before I was billed the fee: That's fantastic: saved me the trouble to write in :)

I had a shock when I tested my cholesterol level: it went through the roof! Total cholesterol and LDL were significantly higher than 6 and 4 respectively, benchmarks that was set by the doctor, given my lifestyle and assessed low comorbidity risk. In fact, those were the highest so far. Yikes. My immediate thought was to purchase artovastatin on the same day I got the results but later I thought maybe I didn't fast long enough (should be at least 10 hours) and therefore tainted by the two walnuts that I ate late at night. However, my sister pointed out that walnuts supposed to lower cholesterol, not increase it. The other possibility was what I had 4 days earlier during an outing with friends: had a sweet drink (forgot to ask for less sugar) and a slice of cake but I'm not sure. Since this was a significant abberation, I retested 3 days later. The good news was that both total cholesterol and LDL dropped significantly (more than 10%) but they were still higher than the customis...

We did try this one more time but during dinner and so there was no lunch promotion. Once again, the portion is quite huge but quality is so-so. Apparently, this is a recurring comment in the Google reviews. Also, I wish there was more fresh vegetables, to complement the rest of the dish. This is why I haven't had fish & chips in a long time. That was my last try because I don't think it's worth it. Incidentally, the outlet at One Utama is permanently closed.

After I started using ASUS Zenfone 8 about 2.5 years ago, I noticed how slow Ban's phone (Samsung Galaxy J6 plus) was. It became more obvious as he needed to install and use more apps on it but he was still fine with using it. What changed his mind was the sudden erratic clicking of the phone's pointer i.e. it moved erratically and randomly clicking everywhere. The technician at Dr iDevice guessed that moisture had somehow gotten in and messed up its inside. After trying her best to dry its inside, she advised Ban to observe. Didn't charge him, even though he offered :) It didn't come back for sometime but when it did, coupled with him dealing with the slow process of using more apps, Ban decided to get a new phone. As a birthday gift (he rarely needed anything!), I offered to research for a phone that suited his criteria and helped to purchase it. This was the list of criteria that I came up with, based on my observation of how he used his previous phones, which he a...