Here's My Story

As blogged earlier this year , I did my health screening before my annual trip to Australia mid-Dec. WBC dropped again, this time from 3.4 to 3. Hope it doesn't drop below 3, which would be my cue to consult the haematologist again. Neutrophl count dropped from 2.1 to 1.7 but still above 1.5. Lymphocyte count dropped from 1.0 to 0.9 (ref 1.5-4.5) while  monocyte count increased from 0.2 to 0.3 (ref 0.4-1.1), which are still similar to previous two years' results. Interestingly, I was a little unwell, which should have had increased WBC. The cholesteroal results as compared to 4 months ago :                                   Jul 25                  Nov 25                  Ref Total cholesterol            6.1               ...

  Saw this at SS2. I believed it was at the XLL Malahotpot restaurant. Did patrons frequently sing in this restaurant in the past? If so, why did they choose this restaurant? 

(Emphasis is mine, to show the mistakes) 1. The Australian article: " Forrest vs Farquhar in battle over AI  ". Sentence: " Those are the findings of research from Talbot Mills, commissioned by which Andrew and Nicola Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation. " 2. Free Malaysia Today article: " Rested but rusty Djokovic plots US Open ambush ". Sentence: " Only time will whether the gamble pays off at a tournament Djokovic also won in 2011, 2015 and 2018. " 3. Free Malaysia Today article: " Australia summons Singtel as penalty looms over fatal outage ". Sentence: " Singtel said Wednesday that it’s supported Optus by investing more than A$9.3 billion in the past five years, with a large proportion going toward building network infrastructure across Australia. "  

Unexpectedly, about three months after the first repair , my laptop had issue again. This time it was worse: I was playing Minion Masters when everything stopped working except for the power indicator. Thinking that it was an auto-shutdown, I pressed the power button to start up the laptop but unexpectedly even the power indicator light went off i.e. no lights whatsoever from the laptop. A quick web search led us (Ban drove) to Zarif Refurbished Laptop (we were in Butterworth), which had many Google reviews with average rating of 5. Unfortunately, the technician was on a 4-day company trip. Next we went to Northern Lowyat, after Ban called (I drove because Ban was feeling tired) to confirm that their technician was available. It was the shop where my sister's family had gotten their laptop repaired previously but her feedback was "No choice" when I asked her whether they were good or not 😅 Took another two days before they informed me that the issue was faulty motherboar...

Several months back, my mum came across two old BSN bank books, one of which was a joint account with my sister. She asked me to bring her to a BSN branch to close the accounts. Unfortunately, because these were inactive for more than seven years, they were already closed and we were told to go to Komtar to reclaim the money. Komtar is the name of a building on Penang island and so I asked the bank staff the name of the organisation that held the money but I couldn't understand her. So I gave up and instead did a web search later. That was when I came across eGUMIS, a web portal established by Jabatan Akauntan Negara Malaysia i.e. Malaysia Department of Accountant to enable people to claim unclaimed money online, rather than physically going to their office. There were a couple of obstacles I encountered: firstly, it wasn't possible to claim money in joint account; secondly, annoyingly it took many tries (over the course of nearly 2 weeks) for the portal to work properly i.e. I...

About 3 weeks after the last appointment  i.e. a month after the laser procedure, Ban's eye was checked and it was ok. So now he could go back to doing his usual exercises i.e. lifting weights and jogging but avoid doing anything that involves sudden jolt. However, we were caught by surprise when he given another follow-up appointment in 6 months time. Later, with his agreement, I checked with Asia Eye Centre, which is much nearer to where we stay, whether Dr Poh would be ok to do this follow-up. According to the staff there, she could check the eye but she isn't specialised in retina and so the implication that if there is something wrong with the retina, Ban would still need to see another specialist. Well, in that case, we agreed that Ban should just stick to the Subang Eye Specialist Centre. 

Hmmmm I think it's very possible to exhaust all possibilities, isn't it? 

During the 3-week period in between sessions, pain was triggered by pouring water from the kettle where I just moved by wrist, scooping out soup by using a ladle, with a twisting motion, closing a container by turning its lid clockwise, and slicing off the skin of a salmon fillet. All of them except the first occurred only once despite doing it multiple times. Quite strange. As usual, when the pain occurred, my initial feeling was that it was located between the base of the thumb and wrist, probably just above the wrist but when I pressed that part, it didn't trigger. Instead, I found spot about an index-finger below the wrist, next to the tendon, that elicited some pain. After investigating, the therapist said that my initial assessment was correct: just that the trigger for the pain was deep within in, which he did discover during the investigation. As usual, his treatment made the pain went away despite me performing all the motions that typically triggered the pain, as request...

 Just outside Betty's Kitchen:  

My current favourite at District 13: salmon with egg benedict. Filling and delicious.   Wasabi caesar salad at De Sundays Cafe. Filling, not bad but not to my liking. Maybe gotta do with cooked salmon :D Understandably, it cost more than RM 30.    De Sundays ramyun noodle. Ramyun fans would probably like this better than I did. I liked it I vaguely remember that it was a little light for me. Didn't order it again since there are other food I prefer at the cafe.   Jasmine green tea with lemone scent. Pretty good.   When the fjord trout fillet isn't enough, I usually will top up dinner with tamago, which is Ban's favourite :) 

Ban and I are optimisers, whether in single or multiplayer games. In this post, I would like to focus on table-top role-playing games (TTRPG). Ideally, everyone should try their best to optimise their TTRPG characters. It would make their characters useful to the party and thus make everyone happy. I regularly encounter players who eschew optimisation in favour of flavour/roleplay-wise. For example, a DnD's Warlock can safely dump Intelligence and Strength to maximise their most important stats i.e. Charisma, Dexterity and Constitution to be useful but someone might say, "But my Warlock has to be intelligent because of his background." Their character is either (1) suboptimal but not bad because their most important stats are still reasonable: just not as a high as they could be because some points are allocated to their roleplaying stats, or (2) terrible because their most important stats are weak. In my heart, I would frown on (2) because they are just burdening the par...

Eight days after the initial consultation and the subsequent operation, we were back at Subang Eye Specialist Centre. This time, I found parking much nearer than the last time and we spent 1 hr 40 mins instead of 3 hours. Still a snooze fest 💤 The good news is that Ban's eye is recovering as expected, nothing untoward happened for the past 8 days, and there is no other tear or complication. The bad news is that, apparently, we misunderstood the doctor previously: Ban is to refrain from strenous activities for a month, not just the first week 😬 Next apppointment (hopefully the last!) is in 3 weeks time. 

This session was two weeks after the last . About a week before this, I noticed that dicing chicken didn't cause pain: it was more like soreness. Also, at last I could pinpoint where the pain was coming from. Oddly, it was from two places: a spot deep inside the fleshy part of the palm, below the thumb and closer to the wrist; the other spot is about one-and-a half finger line below the wrist, on the right side of the tendon. As usual, Lee checked by manipulating the hand and arm. He declared that this was the best condition so far, which I agreed. Continue with the same exercises and I can restart push-up, which he already said I could during the last session but I'm going to take it slow. I'll resume with knees down first. Next appointment is in three weeks time.   

One day, Ban complained about a strand of hair kept getting into his eye. He suspected it was this abnormally long unruly eyebrow hair. I showed him that I had one too, which is longer, but it doesn't bother my eye. He was then curious as to why his shorter eyebrow hair got into his eye. He later realised that there are floaters in his right eye. I told him that I have one or two of them for decades and I vaguely recalled that they were harmless. I suggested to him that he googled about it to be sure. Couple of days later, he told me that according to some medical websites, sudden onset of floaters warrant a visit to the doctor. He wasn't sure whether he should go straight to an ophthalmologist or not. I suggested consulting a GP first. Well, GP suggested to see the specialist :D Ban chose to consult the ophthalmologist that the GP recommended i.e. Dr Kewaljit Singh. Subang Eye Specialist Centre was more than 20 mins away by car. Belatedly, I remember there is a much nearer, th...

Level 8 Class feat: Drifting Pollen. Yet another way to debuff enemies. Stacks with off-guard, which I can easily do by flanking, and frightened, which our swashbuckler and sorceress can do. This then increase the chance of critically succeeding in inflicting prone condition on them via some Impulses. However, since affects all creatures within my aura, I will retrain Level 4's Tumbling Lumber to Safe Elements and retrain Level 5's Calcifying Sand to Tumbling Lumber. I'm getting rid of the Calcifying Sand because of its Overflow trait i.e. if triggered, it will stop my Kinetic Aura and so Drifting Pollen will disappear too. Since it will not be my turn (it's a Reaction), I cannot reactive my aura immediately thereafter. Skill feat: Mortaling Healing. Increased potential healing from Treat Wounds. Level 9   Skill increase: Master in Athletics. Ancestry Feat: Mountain's Stoutness. Increased tankiness and survivability. Gate's Thresshold: Expand the Portal -> Ea...

Level 2 Class feat: Tremor. Range AOE that can knock prone enemies on critical success. Regardless of enemies' rolls, the burst area becomes difficult terrain. Prone enemies are off-guard and take -2 circumstance penalty to attack roll. So enemies are easier for us to attack while this makes them harder to attack us. They can stand to get rid of the prone condition but that will eat one of their 3 actions. Skill feat: Assurance in Medicine. Helps to auto-succeed in Medicine check to Treat Wound when it's upgraded at the next level. Level 3 Skill increase: Expert in Medicine. With proficiency bonus +7, I auto-succeed when Treat Wound because of Assurance in Medicine. General feat: Fleet. Speed increases from 20ft to 25ft. Positioning is crucial if I want to melee. Level 4 Class feat: Tumbling Lumber. Similar to Tremor but its AOE is retangular and requires Reflex save instead of Fortitude save. So the choice of which of these impulse to use is mainly dependent on which save the ...

So, I thought of ways to support my melee teammates. Right after first session, I asked GM's permission to change from single gate earth kineticist to dual-gate earth & wood kineticist simply to grab Timber Sentinel from wood element.  We're now level three and based on the various encounters we had so far, I came up with the following build up to level 12 (expected last level of the campaign). I'll set out my plan on how to use this build to help my party in this campaign. Level 1 Ancestry: Dwarf Dwarf has high hit points and boost Constitution (primary statistic for kineticist), Wisdom (high Will save is good and also main stat for Medicine) and one ability score of your choice. The flaw is a minus one Charisma, which isn't important for this build. Heritage: Aiuvarin Picked this so that later I can pick the ancestry feat to increase speed. Ancestry feat: Unburdened Iron A great feat as it lets you ignore the reduction to speed from any armor. The deduction in red...

For sometime now, Ban and join had accepted invitation to join an acquaintance's discord server mainly for ttrpg games that he runs. Later, upon my suggestion, Ban and I attended one-shot sessions of a couple of games. Signed up for a third but that was canceled because of lack of players. Despite having tried more systems, I'm still partial towards DnD's system. However, when the GM announced that he was looking for players for Season of Ghosts, an adventure path for Pathfinder 2e (now Remastered version), I decided to sign up for it after Ban agreed to do so too. It's the closest to DnD system and I had some experience with Pathfinder 1 from playing Wrath of the Righteous crpg, with lots of help and guidance from Ban. I am aware that Pathfinder is way more complicated than DnD. One great thing about Pathfinder is that there are free character builders that incorporate nearly everything in the game. The one we're using is Pathbuilder 2e. It is only the animal compa...

Is the Harry Potter still popular currently? Incidentally, I'm now playing Hogwarts Legacy, which is aready two years old. Regarding these donuts, I find that I don't like such doughnuts (American donuts?) because they're too sweet. Plan doughnut with some sugar is the best.

This session was 3 weeks after the last . About a week before it, I started to be aware of which actions trigger pain or twinge: Slight pain when hand on a mat, slightly behind me, pointing backward and body leaned slightly towards it. Slight pain when dicing chicken. Noticeably lesser t han previously . Twinge at base of thumb when doing the shoulder stretch using the wall. Twinge when wiping face with towel but I now think it occurs only in the morning. Overall, it's better: triggered less often and pain intensity is much less. As usual, Lee examined the hand and arm, prodded/massaged them while getting feedback from me until finally the pain was reduced to mere twinge. He concluded that it might be posture issue. Something to do with my neck and being slightly hunched when I sat up. All exercises remained the same except replace the chest/back stretch (point (3) here ) with the following: Both arms straight out in front with hands making the thumbs' up sign. Raise arms up a...

After sorting out the retiming mess more than a month ago, I was checking my phone's photo album to make sure I screenshot all the relevant flights and hotels for our trip to Australia. This is just in case there's problem opening the relevant apps later to show the booking reference numbers (I don't print out anything). Apparently I had yet to screenshot the reserved seats. So I wanted to do that but then noticed that seats were not selected for the KUL-SIN leg on the MAS flight. I checked and confirmed that seats were reserved on the original SIA flight and so by right I should be given seats upon transfer to the MAS flight. So, once again, I used the live chat feature in the SIA app to get help. The first CSO checked and then told me that I should use the same booking reference number in the MAS app, which I did, and then asked, "Anything else by the way?" I was dumbfounded. I succintly asked why my reserved seats disappear upon the transfer and then they lost...

We celebrate our "went steady" (is there a neat term for this?) anniversary instead of our marriage anniversary. In fact, Ban still doesn't remember the date of the latter :D I wonder which date is more common. This year, it coincides with a session of Pathfinder 2e Remastered ttrpg which we signed up for. It's part of a campaign, based on the adventure path Season of Ghosts, rather than a one-shot. It ran from 1pm to just after 5pm. We hang out there, chatting with fellow players, before heading to Kinpachi for dinner at 6pm. Kinpachi is one of our favourite haunts but we dined there only 2 to 4 times a year because it's expensive. Most of the time, we ordered these: seafood teppanyaki for Ban and eight pieces of salmon sushi for me. Once a while we tried something different and that was what I did this time too:   This is daimyou maki.  It was huge! I had to take two bites to finish one. Its filling was salmon, tuna, yellow tail, egg and cucumber. Delicious and ...

The real way you win a competition is by running faster, not by holding our competitor down. - Anne Neuberger 

There was a pair of black short pants which was a bit tight for me. At first I thought it was due to the position of its button: I sewed it further than its original position. Yes, I could have rectified it but I was feeling lazy and so I merely waited for it to come loose again :D One day, however, I noticed that it was also difficult to zip. I guess putting on 4.5 kg over the last 10 years or so does that :D I would like to think that my thigh muscles have grown. The last point could be the reason because I could still wear all other short pants. I decided to stop wearing the pants when I noticed that I felt uncomfortable after having lunch. So, the next thing to do was to get a new pair of pants. There is one place that I can reliably find short pants that fit me: F.O.S. Their size 28 Navy & Navy pants fit me just right, unlike many other places where some don't even have such size. I saw a design that I didn't have and so I tried a pair of black pants and one other pair...

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The first scare  more than 2.5 years ago resulted in us ordering an ultrasound for mum. Fatty liver was (probably) the cause of the elevated AFP. Fatty liver was further confirmed about 8 to 9 months later  but AFP was normal few months before this. It was again normal in late 2024 but a year after that it was elevated once again. As an aside, mum has been diligently exercising for about an hour everyday, when she's isn't unwell. She has also cut down on fatty and fried food. Hence, we'll be surprised if there's still fatty liver. Also, tests showed, for two consecutive years, that she's immune to hepatitis A and B and non-reactive to hep C and so we didn't order these tests for 2025. Both Pathlab and mum's GP advised us to get ultrasound done. Dr Yeoh was confident that it would show that there is nothing wrong, despite the elevated AFP. He suggested that mum consult doctor at her usual Klinik Kesihatan at Penaga so as to get free ulstrasound done. The doct...

During the two weeks after the previous session , I noticed something rather peculiar: there were more actions that triggered the pain shortly after I woke up each morning than during the rest of the day. For example, I drink a full glass of water shortly after I brush teeth. That triggers the pain. At other times, it's either no pain or so slight that I won't notice it if I don't pay attention to it. I reported this to the therapist. He proceeded to massage and prod different parts of the hand. The first several proddings didn't trigger any pain but later he found it: it was deep inside. So, as I understand it, something (a tendon?) inside was stiff and inflexible and so certain movements caused the bone to rub against it and thereby irritated it. He proceeded to explore ways to alleviate it. Took him four tries before I finally confirmed that there were no more pains when I it. The following exercises were added to the current routine: (1) Palm facing left, with finge...

Among the notable fast-food restaurants, A&W had the best fried chicken. However, it's food that I rarely have. Just not value-for-money and my money is better spent on, say, salmon sushi :D Late last year or earlier this year (I kept forgetting to blog about this), we decided to dine at the outlet at Paradigm Mall. It was a first for us. Years ago, I patronised the outlet at Seventeen Mall a few times. I ordered a meal set which included two pieces of chicken thigh. I was shocked to receive these:   Each of this was just slightly larger than a piece of cut chicken of a typical stir-fry chicken dish or braised chicken dish that can be found at many mixed rice shops but this meal cost close to RM 30! Ala carte price for these two pieces are currently RM 17.90. To add salt to wound, they didn't taste as good as previously either :( If I ever want to have A&W fried chicken again, it won't be at this outlet. 

(Emphasis is mine, to show the mistakes) 1. Malaymail article: " ‘Like a plane turbine’: Witness tells of raging gas fire near Puchong, Putra Heights ". Sentence: " "Since yesterday was the first day of Raya, most of us were asleep but we were women up abruptly because we wanted find out what was causing the scorching heat and noise from the shaking of the iron grilles," " 2. The Rakyat Post article: " Parents Order SPM Retakes Despite 4 As: Student’s Engineering Dreams Hit Family Roadblock ". Sentence: " Despite scoring straight As in four subjects including Mathematics and English, and earning a B in History , the student faces mandatory retakes of science subjects they passed with lower grades – all due to unyielding parental pressure. " "Straight As" means A for all subjects . 3. BBC article: " Trump's ceasefire pivot will have caused dismay in Kyiv and Europe ". Sentence: " Despite Europe's emerg...

During the 12 days after the last session , I took note of activities triggered the pain: Lifting the bottom of my t-shirt. Scooping up soup using huge ladle. Drinking soup with a spoon from a bowl held near me. Dicing chicken. When thumb was used to scoop up dental floss that dropped on floor. Holding phone horizontally and bringing it closer by bending elbow and wrist. 5th finger pressing Shift key while 2nd finger pressing the 8 key The good news was that when it occurred, the intensity was less. During this session, the therapist remarked that the tendon was no longer swollen. After further testing, he concluded that it was back to the original diagnosis i.e. De Quervain tenosynovitis 😔Possible repetitive actions that might cause this, that is specific to me, are using thumb to press space bar and the positioning of wrist when using keyboard. Lee massaged and used shockwave to treat the pain. As usual, the pain went away after that. I was to continue with the current exercises and...

Recently I remembered that I want to visit this cat cafe at Aman Suria and so Ban agreed with my suggestion to check it out. We quite like cats but not as much as dogs :) The only requirement at the cafe was that each customer had to order an item. They had a small selection of meals, cakes and a larger selection of drinks. We ordered their big breakfast. RM 36 each. Yes, it was pricey but we took it as fee to mingle with the cats. Fortunately, it was quite nice. There was a list of rules regarding interacting with cats. The ones that I can remember are Sanitise hands before and after touching cats. Respect the cats: don't carry them, let them come to you. No human food for them. As expected, there were treats (for sale, I would think) for them. No flash and loud click from using camera.  Most of them were napping. There was only a couple that came awfully close to human food :D I managed to pet only a couple of them.      Someone is 'guarding' the rodents :D  ...

(continuted from here ) ...it took me 2 hours 24 mins to get home 🤯The usual peak period traffic was worsen by the heavy rain. About 70 mins into the ride, I was informed (via phone call) that the motherboard had been repaired but it seems that my RAM was also damaged and they would show me later. Meanwhile, I texted Ban to ask his help to cook rice and boil a couple of eggs. He then had two near-accidents: One at the carpark of a mall: nearly hit a car. The other was at home: the lid of the pot that he used to cook the eggs exploded but fortunately none of the glass pieces hurt him. I was so relieved that he wasn't hurt in either case. Gave him a hug when I knew this. Didn't matter much that the rice was undercooked because he forgot to add enough water. Poor Ban. I prepared the salad first so that we both could start with that first while I prepare the salmon don and eggs. We then finished our dinner at our usual pace while regaling each other about our respective woes. As e...

When I purchased  ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14  slightly more than 3 years ago, I almost immediately paid for extended warranty with premium service. Thus the warranty was extended from 2 years to 3 years. Yet, my laptop needed repair about a month after the warranty expired 😑 I was playing Immortals of Aveum demo. I wanted to check something on the web and so I alt-tabbed. Then bam! Monitor went blank but keyboard lights were still on. There was no sound too. I just did what I usually do: tried force shutdown it by holding down the power button. It took longer than usual to shutdown i.e. about 15 counts but it immediate started back up. It didn't fix the issue though: monitor was still blank with no sound of Windows starting. Later I discovered that if I unplugged the power cable, I could stop the auto restart after force shutdown it. However, the issue remained. So I decided to bring it to the nearest ASUS service centre i.e. Serveall Low Yat at Plaza Low Yat. Took Grab because Ba...

 

SIA informed me that the KL-SG flight is retimed to take off later and arrive in Singapore 10 minutes later than original. That was a problem because transit time (to connect the flight to Melbourne) was reduced from 55 mins to 45 mins. It wouldn't be a problem if it was only Ban and I, based on our past experience. However, we got our mum this time and she would be using a wheelchair provided by SIA. SOP for passengers using wheelchair is that they will be the last to disembark. So, I tried phoning SIA office in KL but there didn't seem to be an option to speek to someone. I remember that I used a "live chat" i.e. messaging in real time with an actual customer service officer previously and luckily I checked the SIA app because it was there. CSO #1: Despite me asking explicitly whether 45 mins was sufficient or not for transit time given my mum's situation, they didn't answer directly but proceed to give me alternatives. All alternatives involved taking a nig...

About a week and half after the last session , there was hardly any difference 😞 After asking questions and testing the wrist, Lee concluded that it was still a tendon problem @@ One question that I couldn't answer then was what actions triggered the pain. Since then, I started observing and one action was when I lifted the bottom of my t-shirt. I messaged the therapist and he wasn't surprised: "Cause that is contracting and stretches it. So it put some pressure onto the tendon." Lee administered massage and shockwave therapy. Thereafter, he asked me to ice the tendon for 3 consecutive days after completing physio exercises. He also asked me to stop the following physio exercises: (1) The thumb mobility exercises as blogged previously i.e. (1), (2) and (3))  (2) Side mobility as blogged previously i.e.the new exercise then .  He also asked me to stop a couple of my daily exercises: bicep curl and crunches. The latter is just in case I used my hands (I placed them beh...

We've been dining at Menya Appare quite regularly. Maybe once every two weeks? Ban was adventurous and tried these two (on separate occassions of course): It was not bad but not as good as the one served at Ramen O in Canberra, Australia :D Also, evidently Ban preferred the restaurant's ramen because he never ordered this again. This turns out to be a gem! Unexpectedly good. Taste of ginger but not spicy. I've been alternating between this and the yuzu shio ramen . We also brought my mum there when she was here in PJ. She liked both ramen too.

Remember the trust issues I have with CPF? Reiterating point (2): " Any changes in CPF rules should have been grandfathered i.e.do not affect those are already CPF members and affect only new members " It seems that EPF is doing just that if the proposed changes are implemented: " Lim stressed that the proposed changes will not affect the existing withdrawal rights of current EPF members. The new structure will apply only to new members after the implementation date, while existing members may choose to opt in voluntarily. " Source: Malaymail news article " EPF mulling two-tier account system to support post-retirement income, says deputy finance minister "  I hope they will adopt this policy should the changes go ahead. A rare instance where Singapore has something to learn from Malaysia. 

After about 2.5 half months, I decided to consult Lee again because although there was further improvement, the pain didn't go away. In fact, I felt pain when I helped to lift mattress, with palm placed underneath it, and when I placed palm on the exercise mat, behind me, hand facing behind and lifted the wrist slightly. Curiously, when I pulled thumb back, the pain at the base of the thumb was lesser than previously but if I held it for 10 counts, the wrist pain vanished. Lee said that it was a distraction 😅 He asked me to try a few things and one of them produced a puzzling result: one of the two ways I reproduced the wrist pain was to extend my hand forward, palm faced towards me and used the other hand to gently push the back of the palm towards me. However, as requested by Lee, I tried this with hand extended sideway, the pain was much less. He surmised that the posture of the shoulder/back was incorrect. So unlike previous sessions, time was spent on massaging the muscles ar...

  😂

  I've ever only seen one: it was at Megah Rise Mall's outlet.  On another note, this cracks me up :D   

Here's the latest results, compared to three months ago:                                      Apr 25                 Jul 25                  Ref Total cholesterol            6.3                       6.1                    <5.2  (<6)* Non-HDL                      4.6                       4.5                     <3.4    HDL ("good")             1.74                    1.61        ...

Recently, Ban and I went on a short trip to Singapore i.e. two nights. We flew Firefly from Subang Airport to Seletar Airport. The former is much closer to our home than KLIA T2. It was only later on that I discovered that Scoot also flies from Subang airpot but, as I just checked, it is more expensive. On our way back, at the autogate immigration clearance at Seletar Airport, I followed the instructions on the panels. After I cleared both barriers, I was confused because there was no instruction to have my passport scanned, whereas I heared an officer telling a senior citizen to do that when he was guiding the latter.  So I tried to flag that officer but he was already looking at the other passengers. Instead, an officer at a counter offered to help me. I informed her that I was not asked to scan my passport. She assured me that that was alright because the machine scanned my iris instead. What?! Wow, that's so advanced!  Later, I searched and found this: Automated Lanes at t...