Here's My Story

I noticed that the price mix rice, or popularly known as chap fan in Cantonese, has gone through the roof at most places around Sri Damansara and Aman Suria after the first few days of Chinese New Year. Example: Price = RM7.50! It's insane. Before Chinese New Year, it was probably below RM6.50. Ban and I are very fortunate that the stall we regularly patronise still retain the same pricing, which was already lower than other shops before Chinese New Year. Example: Price = RM5.30. Even after taking into account the small difference in the quantity of meat, this is still cheaper. Food inflation in Malaysia is scary.

Some asked me what I do on a daily basis, now that I'm self-employed. Well, here's an account of a fairly typical day: 10am Alarm clock rang. Snoozed 5 mins before switching it off when it rang again. Got up at 10.45am. Kissed honey on cheek. Kissed honey on lips. He smiled but still sleeping hehe. Sinus rinse. Washed face. Out into the living room. Switched on laptop. Opened curtains. Inspected my baby (the money plant). Would water it later. Shaved. Prayed. Checked e-mails. Gtalked with William. 11.20am Started blogging an account of the day. Drank oat, which was soaked overnight. Gently woke honey up. Poo poo. Washed dishes. Kept dry dishes. Brushed teeth. Brushed mouth guard. Watered baby. Folded blanket. A quick check on character in Oblivion. Checked Backyard Monsters. 12.10pm Went out for lunch. 12.55pm Put bedsheet and pillow cases to wash, with honey's help. Sprayed Febreze on pillows. Checked Warstorm. Looked up Oblivion spells on net. Playe

I forgot to mention that one reason why driving stesses me out, besides those near-accidents (obviously) which traumatised me, is that it turns me into a nasty person (it's cyclical: stress -> nasty -> stress) and often the people taking the brunt of this are my loved ones. Ban suffered quite a lot, especially because the difference in the way we think about road directions. Sorry honey! I'm sure with practice we'll understand each other better. Muack!

Finally, after a few misses, I managed to lunch at Kanna Curry House at SS2, with my family. We sat outside under a a rather translucent shade but luckily it wasn't sunny and the air wasn't hot. We were promptly attended to, especially since my family members have been there before and were ordering at ease and with banter. Regardless of what you order, you would already be charged for rice and 3 standard vegetables, although it appears that my mum was charged lesser for picking only 1 vegetable dish. I can't remember whether these are unlimited or not but it is certainly so for the papadam. My only regret is that I did not have room for more of the latter :) The one dish highly recommended by my sister is the fried chicken. Instead of the crispy type that I imagined it to be, it was similar to being grilled. It was quite delicious and not so oily. The most surprising dish was the fish, fried the same way as the chicken but tasted better somehow and certainly moist.

Some people may think that my stress level has gone down dramatically since I've stopped working full-time for others and now instead are earning mostly passive income. I did think so until... (a) I started driving; and (b) food prices skyrockected. Actually, (a) causes immediate increase in stress each time I drive while (b) is potentially a long-term killer. It is no wonder insurance companies charge extra premium, at least for certain insurance policies, for residing in Malaysia. Sooooo...be gentle with me, ok? ;)

Scrabble souffles , originally uploaded by Jaded Jeremy . Me: *Look at tiles* Oooohhh. *Look up dictionary* Hey, do you know what's a souffle? Ban: Oh noooooooo Me: Apparently it has plural form. *Proceed to place the tiles* Ta-da! Ban: ... (5 mins later) Ban: *Head's lolling from side to side* Think I'll take a nap.

Big 2 is a card game, using the usual poker cards, where 2s are the highest cards while 3s are the smallest. Ideally there should only be 4 people playing and certainly not more than that and hence each person has 13 cards. At any time, up to 5 cards, except for 4, can be played. I understand that some people also disallow 3 cards to be played. It has been a ritual with my family to play either Big 2 or 7 Diamond at night, for about an hour or so. For the past few nights, we have been playing Big 2 and boy, what a start to the lunar new year: I was the loser in the last 3 matches, where each match consisted of at least 12 rounds. Instead of taking into account the face of each card, we used a simpler scoring system whereby each remaining card (the winner of a round shall be the one who manages to get rid of all his cards), regardless of its face, shall be counted as 1 point. My worst score was a staggering 87! Well, I supposed since my bad luck has now run its course so quickly f