Here's My Story

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...

After about 9 days of this routine during MCO, I started missing food that I usually have when we go out for dinner on Saturday and Sunday. Our usual routine sans MCO is lunch at our favourite chap fan shop Mon - Sat, dinner at condo's cafe Mon - Fri, Sun lunch either around The Curve/IPC if we go to gym or another chap fan shop at Aman Suria, and weekend's dinner at Sushi Tei/Go Noodle/Cow Brothers/An Viet. I suggested to Ban that we order Japanese food from Aoki-tei Japanese Restaurant, one of the many F&B shops listed on https://fooddelivery.com.my/. I read about this platform in a newspaper article. Storehub made it free for listing during this MCO and offered Beep Delivery to those who requires food delivery service. I ordered Udon + Sashimi. I can't remember what Ban ordered. It cost most than RM 50 and thus qualified for free delivery. I believed it took about 45 minutes, after placing the order, for the food to arrive from Kota Damansara. Hmmm I wonder fo...

My sisters and I shared to get a foot massager from Lazada for our parents. The (initial) delivery was fast: took only two days. Here's the review I submitted on the product: (1) Foot massager is ok for its price. (2) Red light for all indicators although manual says green, yellow, red. (3) Remote control case cracked. Poorly packed. No protective bubble wrap around it. It was at the bottom of the box! (4) Received replacement remote control on 2nd delivery (1st one got lost or something) but it didn't work for the first 3 times. After that, it still wasn't working properly, like the old one. (5) So if remote control is important to you, don't get this foot massager. At the same time, I also submitted a review on the seller (Gitaloha): (1) Delivery was fast (2 days) but many problems later (see below). (2) Seller offered replacement for cracked remote control (great!). 1st delivery never made it. 2nd delivery made it but it was confusing (see (3) below). The ...

My backpack was purchased maybe 5 years ago from Body Glove. If I recall correctly, the price was just over RM40. But alas, a couple of years ago, its inner lining started to peel off. I'm afraid that its outer fabric will give way any time. Now, normally when I receive e-mail from Lazada, I just thrash it. Possibly because of my sister's suggestion ("try shopping online lah"), I recently read one e-mail and decided to check out backpacks. Cheap backpacks below RM30. There were a couple I shortlisted and since I do not know the difference between these two in term of quality, I chose the cheaper one: RM 24.70 after 55% discount. I like it :) If it lasts for at least 5 years, then it's so worth the money spent. Incidentally, the delivery time was supposed to take 6-8 days but I received it in 2 days! Phew, luckily I was at home when the courier service deliveryman arrived. I had trouble sleeping the night before and so was awake few hours before ...

As stated in their website , Costco is a "membership warehouse club". To me, it's similar to Tesco here in Malaysia except that you need to pay for membership. They do have significantly more items packaged in bulk. Malaysia used to have Makro hypermarket that charged for membership but they didn't survive. According to my sister, it can't be said in general that things are cheaper there. They have items that are cheap but others are priced similarly as, say, the supermarkets. So you will need to pay attention to the things you buy and the number of trips you make to determine whether it's worth paying the membership fee. So here's a photo of how it looks inside: It does have the warehouse kind of look, doesn't it? Not too far off from Tesco except that Tesco looks more like a supermarket? It even has a small foodcourt: Although there was hot food sold by that small store, we purchased food from inside Costco and ate at the table her...

After dinner and shopping at Ikea (got replacement sofa cushion), Ban and I passed by this shop on the way back to the carpark at IPC. I decided to try their chendol (RM 3.90) and I was pleasantly surprised that it was quite good. The proportion of coconut milk seems a little more than usual but everything else was pretty good. The sweetness was just right and the ice does melt (instead of in huge chunks). Only small complaint was that it could have more chendol. In any case, it's definitely better than the Penang Road Famous Teochew Chedul @Paradigm Mall (and cheaper too!).

So following on from my encounter at Digital Mall , I decided to order online but before that, I called Dell to ask whether I could get CDs for the OS and Office. Yes to the former but no to the latter. Well, in that case, I postponed the purchase of Office as surely I could get cheaper price at Digital Mall, right? I opted for the highest spec of Alienware 14. I didn't add anything else except to extend the warranty to 3 years. First problem I ran into was a call from Dell to perform some "verification". They kept asking me for my office phone number and e-mail. I told them that I had none of these and that my laptop was my office (being a part-time consultant). I suspected that these questions arose because the delivery address was different to my credit card's billing address, which I did provide as part of the verification. Luckily, nothing was amiss after that call. I was a little anxious when unboxing the laptop. I had heard people receiving defective Alie...

After my first attempt , I didn't do much because I was in Singapore. Once back in KL, I researched more online, specifically the review of gaming laptops and also users' comments. The tricky part was that some of the laptops I looked at online were simply not available in Malaysia (at the moment). More importantly, I had to consider the level of after-sales service and support locally. In the end, I decided on Dell's laptop, not because Dell had glowing testimonies all around but because it's the least problematic (in terms of after-sale service and support) among the lot. Not comforting, isn't it? Dell website didn't allow me to opt for Windows 7 instead of Windows 8. I had heard horrendous remarks about the latter. Moreover, it wasn't clear whether they would include the OS's DVD. Similar question about Microsoft Office if I choose to purchase from them. I remember a friend managed to customise all these at a retail store. So I went to Digital...

Few years ago, when I experienced difficulty playing some games on my current laptop (for some, I couldn't do anything once the game started!), I wanted to get a new one but that was low in my priority of expenditure, given my limited income and money. So I planned to do so after selling the house in Seremban. As time went on, my laptop's performance deteriorated gradually. For example, it takes a good 10 minutes from start up to stabilising at desktop. Then another 5 minutes to start up Excel (I regularly use spreadsheets) and then another 5 minutes to just open an Excel file. Similar starting up issue with web browser. However, it gets easier later in the day after the first start up. At the end of the day, it takes 10 minutes to shut down. Every few months, the blue screen of death emerges. As expected, meanwhile, there are more and more games my laptop can't handle e.g. Civilisation 5, Path of Exile, Dragon Age. Even the game I currently play, Rift, gets laggy and ...

I'm sure many of you are familiar with Kellog's Cornflake, the ubiquitous representation of cornflake (and certainly superior to Nestle's, in my opinion), much as Maggi represents instant noodle and Tupperware represents plastic container. In Seremban, there's a chain of local supermarkets called Family Store (or Ka Ka in Cantonese...strange to me). Family Store is popular at least in Rasah Jaya area. Not sure about other housing estates around Seremban. On the other hand, I'm sure Giant is a very recognisable hypermarket in Malaysia and generally things are cheaper there compared to your local mini/super markets. Anyway, recently, I found that a large box of Kellog's Cornflake (I believed it's either 125g or 175g) costs RM7.29 in Giant while it costs only a mere RM3.99 in Family Store. This is truly unbelivable as the difference is very significant. I wonder is it possible to arbitrage here? Buy all boxes in Family Store and sell them at where they do...

Remeber my pants tragedy ? I tried my luck again to get the same pants William helped me to choose at Takashimaya, during the ongoing Great Singapore Sale. The last time I visited them they didn't have my size. Lo behold this time they did! I tried a pair, chose the colour of two pairs and asked them to alter the length of the pants. I asked them to use the length of the pants I was wearing (it is the same pants i.e. Brentwood and the same cut) as the measurement. Bought them at the same discounted price as previously. Collected them recently, tried again to make sure they fit and they did. Just hope it would still be when I finally wear them for work. *Fingers crossed*

Ban was down here for the weekend. His brother advised him that trading account in Singapore, for the purpose of trading shares listed in overseas stock exchanges, is better than that in Malaysia for reasons that isn't entirely clear to me...nor to Ban but hey, his brother knows this stuff. Saturday He arrived here on a bright early Saturday morning at about 7.20am. It's the usual time I wake up for work hehe but well, it was ok since I had planned to wake up for tennis even earlier than that. I didn't go for tennis since I decided to get Ban at the airport. Not exactly a good idea to have a bunny hopping too long at the airport ;-) We had breakfast at Parkway Parade and then headed to POEMS to open account. Unfortunately, they needed quite a big sum for deposit and wouldn't accept Ban's suggestion of completing the application and then send the cheque later because it has to be done in person. Bummer. Had lunch at Aston but this time at the branch at East ...

I used to have a rose quartz pendant. Long story short: I lost it. Wasn't really keen to get another one until recently when I was at Parkway Parade. I've been to the shop Times of Feng Shui before and so I decided to go in and enquire. Unfortunately, all the pendants didn't look appealing. Moreover, after having tried having 2 pendants in a chain, I don't think I want that any more. The lady was resourceful enough to recommend a few carry-on rose quartz instead. So in the end I bought this, with a pouch too: There's a note attached to it that's entitled "Romancing Mystic Endless Knot". Here's what it says: The 'Mystic Endless Knot' immortalized in Rose Quartz crystal makes powerful talismans & said to bring all kind of good fortune & networking luck to the owner. Never ending with no beginning it is symbolic of one's life aspirations for perfection, everlasting love, endless wealth, smooth partnership and a union of...

The next day, the Fenix Hotel occupants had breakfast at a nearby Taiwanese restaurant. I had some sort of noodle. It was so-so only to me, and evidently so from the fact that I don't even remember the name of the noodle hehe. Went shopping at Dataran Pahlawan Melaka Megamall (hope I got the name correct). Bought some underwear and a short sleeved shirt (thanks guys!). Caught up with William while Derek and Cheryl had their foot tenderised at at Thai massage shop in the mall. Had chicken rice balls, with chicken of course, for lunch. The rice balls were great but the chicken was kinda normal and in fact more moist than normal. Had delicious chendol after that. We had to queue at both shops. After that, it was tearful parting (hahaha well it could very well had been one) and then back to Singapore. What are the key practical lessons I learn in this trip? (1) Never go during school holidays, especially when it is the case for both countries (2) Satay celup is a must! (3) Th...

...I ever bought in my life. Cost more than some of my shirts! Bought specifically to match the shirts I bought recently which are of the colour lavender (match with tie at the top), rose red (match with tie in the middle), strong blue (match with tie at the bottom) and black (match with tie at the top and in the middle).

I was back in Malaysia from Christmas Eve night till Sunday, 28 Dec. First damage was on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. It was terrible. I just hope things can only get better. Just received news that points towards improvement. Except for Christmas Eve night, I've stayed over at my sister's place in KL. We were at One U on Boxing Day and I was looking for a casual belt. Saw one but thought should look further because wasn't sure it was too broad or not for some of my pants. She helped me to get a short-sleeved shirt, a pair of cargo pants and a pair of jeans. I more or less chose a few pairs of casual and office socks myself. Typical conversation during the shopping process is as follows: Sis: Kor, try this. Me: Ok (later...) Sis: Wah, looks nice wor Me: Ok, buy! People who know me know that I'm lazy at shopping but I'm happy to let someone else to shop for me and I just pay for the goods hehe. On Saturday night, I met up with Mr Skanky and 6 of his frie...