Here's My Story

Passed by this restaurant many times. Prices are on the high side but looking at its menu on the wall, it might be worth trying it. So recently, we did just that.   I was intrigued by this: As my nephew exclaimed, "Can you even eat it?" after I've shared photo of the dish: Oh yes, it was edible :D In fact, the moment it was served, I smelled the distinctive smell of a typical fried chicken. I loved the plating. The sauce and coleslaw were placed in mini saucepans. Cute :) Salad was more than expected and was consist of a variety of vegetables. Great. Mased potato was good and had a slightly unique taste, probably affected by the chicken on top of it. Chicken had a sprinkle of herb on it that gave its taste a twist, otherwise it tasted like a normal fried chicken. Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan of the sweet spicy sauce. Ban had the Miso Buttermilk Chicken. Unfortunately, the chicken was "very chicken-y" to him. The rest of the dish was "nice". I woul...

Here are the average dividend yields on cost for shares that have paid out dividends:   Red: Dividend yield on cost is at least 5.0% Yellow: Dividend yield on cost is below 5.0% Blue: Stocks not covered by Smart Investor. Bar with dividend yield label: Stocks classified as "Income" by Smart Investor.   Share counters (6 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 5.0% in previous review), excluding the 6 share counters mentioned above.  The main concern is the Income stocks with dividend yield on cost lower than 5.0% (yellow bars with yield labels). These are (number of consecutive years of this low yield in bracket): 1.  CapLand IntCom T (1) 2. Frasers L&C Tr (1) 3. Mapletree Log Tr (4) 4. Mapletree Pan Asia Com Tr (1) 5. Parkway Life Reit (6) Parkways is still increasing DPU and so I will be pa...

I made a mistake in the past year. For past one and a half year, I have set aside some fund invested in shares that are recommended by my IFA. He mostly recommended growth stocks i.e. stocks of companies that pay little to no dividend and focus on growing the company and a few ETFs. So I thought I should dispose of the shares that I invested based on the Smart Investor's Dividend Portfolio which are classfied as "growth".  However, later on I realised that these are still dividend paying stocks but of companies that are still growing. Typically the current dividend yield is low (lower than the "income" stocks). The premise of the investment is that as the companies grow, they would pay out more dividend and so the dividend yield on cost would grow. iFAST is a prime example. Hence, I started repurchasing these shares as and when Smart Investor recommends. I still avoid those that are classified as "speculative". Alright, moving on: these are the shares ...

What's the connection with Muslim Chinese food? 

Previously I blogged about this campaign  (with 3 more posts subsequently) where I initially built my character to severely hinder enemies from moving away from me but changed because of party composition. I recently changed back to the initial idea. Here's why: The impetus was the GM's announcement that we would be encountering many more undead, including those who are resistant (or immune) to physical and sometimes resistant to everthing except for vitality damage, This means that I'll likely be using more Wood Elemental Blast rather than Earth, thereby rendering the level 5 pick of  Gate's Threshold: Expand the Portal -> Earth Gate Junction: Critical Blast less useful. After tinkering with the build, here are the changes to the build:   Level 4   Class feat: Tumbling Lumber changed to Safe Elements. This is critical to prevent my teammates from the adverse effects of my kinetic aura (shown later). Also, this also gives the one-action ability Pacifying Infusion ...

I had a taste of the soup and minced pork ball from my nephew's dinner and was motivated to drive nearly 30 mins to try it in situ :D The soup was tasty but a little salty. The amount of ingredient was disappointingly tiny: everything (vegetable and meat) fit into that spoon. Goodness. I ordered the dry version of the noodle. My sister cautioned me that it was "nothing to shout about" but it was even worse here: it was tasteless😢  The longan drink with black sugar was the best part of the meal. Lots of longan and flavourful.  Yeah, not going back there again :(

I came to know of allergy test, covering 52 allergens, from Pathlab sometime ago. I did one nearly 6 years ago , covering 35 allergens. The former cost RM 1,200. My usual doctor's clinic quoted a staggering RM 1,500! So when my sister highligted that Klinik Dr Yeoh, clinic that I go to if I am in Butterworth and I'm sick, charged RM 560, I took up that offer. While waiting for the results, Ban and I brought mum to her first follow-up appointment at Bagan Specialist Centre and we saw a poster for allergy test covering 107 allergens for RM 380 (it's now RM 416). Meh. Here's the result:   Nothing! Not even mild, unlike previously. Ban suggested that I go for the 107 allergens test. My sister agreed. So I would be doing that together with my mum .

A week after the first appointment , my sister brought my mum to see Dr Ling, the skin specialist, for a follow-up. During that week, her condition improved significantly: hardly any redness, still itchy but not as bad. In short, 1. Doctor is happy with the progress and think that we are on the right track. 2. She still diagnosed mum with fungal infection and not allergy. Normal recovery time is about 3 months. 3. Itchiness partly due to dry skin and so need to use moisturiser. 4. Follow-up in 3 weeks time. As discussed beforehand, my sister requested for test of 107 allergens. Privately, we still think that mum has developed allergy towards prawns. Coincidentally, later mum had Penang Hokkien Mee (which is prawn based and has prawns) and developed rashes. I would be bringing mum to the next appointment and hopefully I'll remember to ask the doctor for the result of the swab test. We're puzzled as to why the doctor didn't voluntarily tell us about it.  

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The appointment was a week after discharged from hospital. It involved blood test and then consultation with doctor. For no strong reason other than wanting to trim a little the time spent, I asked Ban to drive us, despite the hospital being a mere 20-min away (normally I wouldn't want to involve him for such short non-strenuous appointment). I am grateful that he agreed because it went on much longer than expected. What happened was that after "recovering" for a few days, unexpectedly mum developed the itchy rashes again two days before the appointment date and condition worsened (there was discharge) around her groin area the next day. The doctor was quite alarmed by this. His initial guess was that she was allergic to prawns (she had it prior to reappearance of the rashes) despite not being the case previously. The summary is that mum could be allergic to prawns all the while but it reaches critical mass only now. Anyway, he decided to defer to his skin sp...