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Assorted food #17

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  This is one of my favourite dishes to cook: stir fried pork with ginger & spring onion. Ban was the one who found the recipe  sometime ago when he wanted to try cooking non-chicken dishes and I started cooking it when he moved on to other dishes. I forgot why he stopped. Probably because he preferred others that are simpler? Flavourful and aromatic but yes, it has quite a number of steps. Using pork tenderloin suits us because it's lean and tender. I used the extra spring onion to cook the oyster king mushroom, which was just lightly salted and sprinkled with soy sauce. It complemented the pork dish.   This was from the chap fan stall at Megah Good Luck Restaurant, a kopitiam at Taman Megah. It cost only RM 2! I only wanted a third of it but instead, the lady said, "I would give you a little more and charge you RM 2." I suspect they were trying to clear as much food as possible was it was late lunch time (around 1.30pm?). Think the stall did that to the customer bef...
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Car window breaker

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Recently, a friend encouraged us to get a car window breaker in case we need to break the window e.g. cannot open the door and need to get out fast. I thought it's a great idea and so shopped for one and purchased this for RM 11.45 on Shopee: After opening, I noticed that there was a piece of glass in the box too:   Ban guessed that it was for us to test the efficacy of the product. I was doubtful because that seems to be an unnecessary cost given that no other products do that too i.e. to provide sample for you to test the equipment on. I asked the seller and it turned out that Ban is correct! So, I placed a piece of newspaper on the table and tried to use the breaker on it. I thought a few taps would break it :D Ban asked me to hit the glass forcefully and bam! Pieces of glass went strewn over the table and onto the floor. Eeeek. Definitely worked but we needed to hunt those shards and put them away. Fortunately, nobody got hurt. 
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Shoddy journalism #17

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(Emphasis is mine, to show the mistakes)  1. Free Malaysia Today article: " Trump says Israel, Hezbollah agree to halt fighting ". Sentence: " But there were fresh signs of tensions between the United States and Washington over the situation in the Middle East. The two countries launched a joint offensive against Iran on Feb 28. " 2. Free Malaysia Today article: " Fifa must rebuild trust after scrapping World Cup investor proposal ". Sentence: " ‘ Ptomote the game’ " 3. Free Malaysia Today article: " Could your daily coffee be linked to less body fat and more muscle? ". Sentence: " A Finnish study found intriguing links between higher coffee intake, body composition and metabolism - although experts tress that coffee itself may not be the cause. "
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Ambushed with rules

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Recently, we went a short trip to Seremban with my mum. I booked an apartment via Booking.com and as expected, they contacted me via WhatsApp to ask for details and to give instructions. One strange question was where I do come from i.e. which state/city. Why? Even if it's for data collection, how does that help them to improve their business? More instructions were given on the day of travel e.g. videos and additional info on how to check in and how to get to the correct carpark bay. All were expected. What wasn't expected was the additional rules that came in when we were about half an hour of reaching the destination, such as no birthday party allowed, no alcohol, no pets and couple must be married. Wth! I have no issue with such rules but to only made them known after money had been paid and we were about to reach the place was distasteful to say the least. When we arrived, I went checking the place for any defect and reported them accordingly. I also noticed that there wer...
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Jesting toast

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During a dinner:  Ban's mum: *Looks at Ban* Ok, give me a birthday toast. Ban: Happy birthday mum. Ban's mum: It's my 75th birthday. Say a longer toast. Ban: Longer toast. Ban's mum: *Gives up and looks at Bans' brother* You try. Ban's brother: Kaya toast, butter toast. 😂 
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Shoe wash collection point

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  I've seen before laundry version of this, in a mall, but this was the first time I came across shoe wash version. This was along a row of shophouses at SS2.
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Inconsistency and omitance

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During a recent actuarial project (valuation of general insurance reserve), auditor pointed out to client the inconsistency of recognising a component of premium (let's call it "CP1") in the total premium but not using it in calculating unearned premium reserve (UPR). So they asked client to include CP1 in their calculation of UPR. Please bear in mind that due to the choice of words the client used, it probably complicated the actuary's and my understanding of what the changes were. I determined which part of our workflow that was affected and looked at the relevant spreadsheets. I pointed out an inconsistency where within the same formula, one parameter excluded CP1 whereas another included it and we multiplied them to obtained estimation of another parameter. I tried my best to explain it to the actuary but first 3 attempts failed. I was frustrated and running out of idea of how else to present this point, when the actuary used a specific example using the data. I t...
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