will i am's delayed diary

One of the fluorescent lights in my dining room died on me. No flickering at all, no response. Did some basic troubleshooting by switching the tube and the starter. The results were the same. Surmised that it was something more sinister like the death of the ballast. Tried my hand to convert the bugger to an LED light by just bypassing the ballast. Changed the wiring and swapped in a LED tube. The light came on, but wasn't stable and I could hear crackling from the light switch. Immediately aborted. Video-called Drew for some professional advice, and he concluded that the light switch is also part of the problem. I had reached the limit of my DIY skills and decided to call in the professionals. Drew was right, the light switch had KO-ed. Also took the opportunity to correct some quirky wiring. Originally, the left gang controlled the right light, while the right gang, controlled the left light. Zzz. The electrician also replaced the casing of the light so things look more streamli...

SK gave me big bowl of water hyacinths, and to avoid mosquito larvae from growing in the water, she  put one fighting fish into it. The water hyacinths started dying after a week. Strange because water hyacinths are actually pretty hardy weeds that choke ecosystems of lakes and rivers. Taking a closer look, I noticed small black dots and silky webs on the leaves. SK said they were spider mites. By the time all the water hyacinths die off, I'll be left with an aquarium that doubles as giant drinking dish for my neighbour's cats.  

One morning, mum found a gaping hole in the char siew bao that she had left on the dining table. The food cover had been pushed to the edge of the table, creating an opening for the unknown pest. We wondered if our resident gecko could achieve such a feat. When a loaf of bread was chewed through, it confirmed that it was something more sinister. A few days later, during a midnight water run in the kitchen, I caught sight of small black shadow dashing across the corridor. Definitely too big for a gecko. The answer was revealed eventually one evening when we were watching television. Heard a crash in the kitchen so we went looking for the source. On our first sweep, we couldn't find anything. Upon a closer inspection, mum found a small rat stuck between the wall and the back of our kitchen cabinet! Guess it entered through the crack in the wall. Sigh. The rat escaped that night, and we started making preparations. Firstly, we started covering the rubbish bin in the kitchen to avoid ...

I've never had air-conditioning in my room. For as long as I can remember, I only had my trusty ceiling fan. The typical three-bladed Panasonic fan. When it got really hot, the only option was to switch the regulator up to the fifth gear, open all the windows, and throw off all my clothes. My fan was doing fine except for an annoying creaking sound that would come and go. Still, I could live with it. One day, SK managed to get a free replacement for me. One of her super rich neighbours at MaisonSK 2.0 gave away fans and water heaters for the simple fact that he didn't like them after installation. So she grabbed one Deka fan for me, and got Drew to help me install it. Drew came one hot afternoon and helped me switch it. I was the assistant who handed him tools, and pointed a portable fan at his head.  After a sweaty sixty minutes, it was done. But he had to install it twice because of a stray screw. Comparatively, this new fan had only four speeds, and used a remote control ins...

On the night that I poisoned my hubby , mum actually had an accident at home. She slipped at the top of the parquet stairs after showering. That caused her to miss several steps, and she landed on her buttocks. The fall was painful, but luckily she could still walk. Such a scare! Falls can be devastating for the elderly. Prompted me to immediately get anti-slip strips for the stairs, and change the floor cleaning solution.  A bit later, I even added motion-sensor lights on the stairs in case mum gets out at night, or if there's a power outage. 

For the past several years, my house had been plagued by a mystery leak. The problem affected the master bedroom toilet. Whenever the master bedroom water inlet was unlocked, the whole water tank would empty within a few hours with no sign of where the water went. No leaking, no ponding, nothing. Mind-boggling. Because of that, we kept the water inlet locked. Two plumbers couldn't diagnose the problem. Perhaps they thought it was too troublesome a problem, and didn't want to get involved. The third plumber we engaged pin-pointed the problem fairly quickly. When I described the problem to him, he already knew where the problem was. He lived in my area, and had already encountered similar issues at other houses. I was completely dumbfounded when he told me that the problem originated from my porch. He told me to unlock the water inlet and put my ear to the ground near a pillar at my porch. Originally that pillar had a tap which we had sealed more than a decade ago. He was right, ...

Mum signed up for a pipe cleaning service to support a friend. The purpose of the treatment is to clean household piping using a purpose-built water pulsator and a mixture of natural acids . At the end of the treatment, years of built-up residue in the pipes would be washed out, improving the quality of the water, and the pressure of the water flow. The process is pretty troublesome, as they need to disconnect the water main, then perform the cleaning process at several points of the house, e.g. kitchen, bathrooms, and main inlet. All require some piping work to connect the special water pump to the piping. The cleaning solution is pumped in, then flushed out from the faucets. Depending on the location, the effluent can range from yellowish to brownish in colour, The odour differs too. Luckily my house was spared from the monthly Selangor water pollution problem, so we didn't have to reschedule. The kid that mum used to babysit in Kuantan was leaving for the UK to further his studi...

This is Bob, my neighbour's cat. As you can see, he is belled, with a cute polka-dot bow around his neck. For reasons only a feline can appreciate, Bob loves to 'infiltrate' my house. Not like I feed him. Not like I encourage him. When nobody's looking, he would slip in through the front door, and sneak upstairs. But he is usually discovered due to the tinkling of his bell. The moment I confront him, he runs helter-skelter, in and out of rooms. Takes some time, but he eventually figures out how to get out of my house. These days, I never leave the front door open if nobody's sitting at the living room. Even if we were in the living room, Bob would try his luck. LOL. How does one solve a problem like Bob?

The circular pendarfluor light at my living room has started blinking, so I went hunting for a replacement. Little did I know that I was going to be a wild goose chase. Giant didnt have stock. Not on the shelves of AEON either. Turned up empty at two branches of Mr DIY. No luck at Mr Hammer too. Went to a light fixture shop at Equine and they shook their head as well. Conclusion, it's obsolete technology. A quick search at Lazada gave me the answer. Online sellers carried what I wanted, but I saw something more interesting~ LED replacement. The idea is to fit a LED board over the original fixture and fasten the thing using magnets onto the base plate. Sounds easy right? I was sold. I put in my order and waited patently for my package to arrive from China. In preparation, I removed the circular light and ballast. And when it came to mounting the LED board... well it just wouldn't fit because there's a big ass bunch of wires coming out in the middle. Everything woul...

For mum and I, church is the best place to usher in the new year. Bilingual mass started at 10:30 PM and ended fifteen minutes shy of midnight, giving parishioners enough time to find a good location to watch the fireworks display outside ( some places actually started the fireworks five minutes before midnight ). And a snack box was provided too. By the time we got home, it was past 1:00 AM and we had mass to attend on the 1st of January too! Not that it was mandatory, just that I had traffic warden duties to perform. A thankless job that nobody wants to do. You have to come to church before the crowd, and leave only after everyone does. And its not pleasant when the weather is hot. And drivers are a cranky bunch. Basically, traffic wardens are disconnected from what happens in the church. Been a while since we ate at Nihon-Kai , so we gave it a try for lunch on New Year's day. Got there at 1:30 PM and it was still crowded. Had to sit at the bar counter. Interesting to experie...

Ever wondered how clean your washing machine is? The stainless steel drum may look shiny and unblemished, but how does it look at the places that don't see the light of day? Do you sometimes catch the scent of something wet and moldy from your washing machine? Discussed this with SK over dinner and she told me that her colleague was selling a washtub cleaner from Japan that cost MYR40 per treatment. Yikes. Since it was just an experiment, SK and I opted for the Daiso option at just MYR5.30. And that was for a box containing three packets. The powder supposedly cleans, deodorizes and disinfects with the use of enzymes and such.  The instructions were easy to follow: Fill up the tub with clean water. Pour in the powder. Run the wash cycle for 3 minutes ( bubbled up like an ice cream sundae! ). Let it soak for 3-6 hours.  Run the full wash cycle. Pretty easy right? Can do it overnight. At the end of the wash cycle, I removed the lint trap and was shocked to ...