will i am's delayed diary

On the Sunday of the Christmas weekend, KH and I went on a date. He came over to my house with a packed lunch of chicken rice. We ate together, and went out to Alamanda Putrajaya to catch a movie. For a mall that's supposedly in a predominantly Malay area, the Christmas decorations were pretty nice. But I was a tad disappointed that I didn't get a wild boar sighting. After months of cased operations, GSC finally reopened their doors. KH bought tickets to "Wonder Woman 1984" from a friend who works for the cinema. The ticket was MYR20, but it came with a half off voucher for your next ticket. Roughly twenty people in the hall. Social distancing enforced, with the staff making rounds to ensure that the SOP is adhered to. My one and only cinema experience for the year 2020 ( holding hands across an empty seat ). WW1984 isn't a must-watch. The plot is very magical and I found some of the themes and parts of the script to be very cringy.     The date continued at Ta...

KH got free tickets to "Instant Family" from a friend. It stars Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne ( you might remember her from "Bridesmaids" and The "Neighbors" ) as a couple who embark on a journey to adopt children. A pretty good watch on the roller-coaster ride of foster parenting. Some things may have been glossed over ( it's a movie after all ), but its funny and heart-warming. Persist till the end when you truly care. For the first time ever, I ate at Tut's , a place serving Egyptian fusion cuisine at One Utama. Can't say if its authentic, but the taste is pretty decent. Ate a mini okra stew with meat that was quite good. Never seen the likes of those mini okras in Malaysia. Very cute, like little nubs. While dining there, I actually saw the Food Panda delivery guy with no hands . Just a few days back I saw a post about him pop up on my FB timeline. Pretty amazing how he can ride.   

IOI gave me four tickets for Wreck-it Ralph II  which I collected at IOI Mall. Naturally I offered the freebies to The Tribe, but BIL couldn't make it, so mum took his seat. I spent a couple of hours loitering around the mall waiting for them to finish. Had lunch at Asam House , a restaurant that had been around since the launch of IOI Mall. I recommend the buburchaha there as its the real deal. KH joined me at Starbucks , and we had a chance to talk that afternoon. In the evening, we went to Banh Mi Cafe at Puchong Jaya for dinner. Impressed by the quality of food and price. It's delicious and friendly to your wallet. My recommendations are the chicken salad ( a perfect appetizer with its lime dressing ), goi cuan , and banh mi with stewed meatballs.

Nowadays, dates with KH happen out of the blue. If he schedule opens up, I would get to see him. Our mid-June date ( OMG a 5-month backlog! ) was pretty complete. Grabbed a bite to eat at Mimi Nguyen . Finally tried their bánh mì, got some grilled pork ribs, and a stuffed bitter gourd soup. That was followed by "Pacific Rim: Uprising" at IOI City Mall. Not bad for a sequel I guess. Bigger, badder Kaiju. More angsty Jaeger pilots. When it was time to talk, we usually would stop for teh tarik . Safreen is a convenient because its on the way back to my place. Although its necessary to get things off my chest, its really not an easy task for me. Takes me some time to open up. But I think KH is quite an expert at coaxing me, and he has definitely picked up a lot of people skills while learning to excel in the Nu Skin business.

On the fourth Saturday of March, I was lucky enough to have a movie date with KH at IOI Mall, Puchong. Like many malls in the Klang Valley. IOI Mall is undergoing a face-lift in a bid to attract more traffic. He picked me up from my home and we had lunch first at Sheng Kee Desserts . Shared a plate of beef brisket noodles, custard bun, and snowy char siew bun. Padini and Brands Outlet were having some kind of clearance, so we walked in to take a look at those RM10, RM20, and RM30 offers. Didn't find anything useful, so we walked up to the cinema to catch "Pacific Rim: Uprising" . Not really a must-watch in my opinion. One of those 'reluctant hero' story lines. Afternoon date hubby, evening date mummy. Brought mum out to The Gardens Mall to jalan-jalan . Dinner was at Coliseum , for some overpriced Hainanese Chicken Chop, and Hainanese Fried Noodles. The coffee was quite worth it through.

For several years now, I have been attending Love Eternal Charity Association of Selangor and Kuala Lumpur's CNY gathering with mum. This Christian non-profit organization primarily works with single parent families, providing them with monetary and non-monetary support. 2018's event ( their 18th ) nearly didn't happen because of the recent death of their founder, the late Reverend Dorcas Wong. But they pulled through anyway, so there we were at SJK(C) Chung Kwo. The luncheon was attended by around twenty charity organizations, including old folks homes, the handicapped, the visually-impaired, the hearing-impaired, single mothers, and dialysis patients. During the lunch, there were many performances, mostly song and dance. And what's a CNY luncheon without a lion dance right? And thank goodness they used the traditional Big Head Monk. At the end of the event, they gave out goodie bags to everyone. Several months ago, SimonLover proposed a CNY gathering at his co...

Out of the blue, KH arranged a day out to Klang. He picked me up at 8:00 AM, and we made our way to AEON Bukit Tinggi where Gratitude was waiting to join us for a hearty BKT breakfast. The first choice was Ah Soon BKT, but it was not opened. Perhaps the owner celebrated Nuzul Al-Quran? Haha. Gratitude presented us with a second choice-- Fei Kay ( literally "aeroplane" ). Fei Kay BKT specialises in the clay pot variant, not the typical small bowl style of Klang. We tried both varieties, soup and dry. Being purists, Gratitude and I prefer the soup variant, but KH wanted to try the dry variant. To me, the latter is also nice, but it definitely ain't BKT. For second breakfast (we sound like Hobbit), Anton asked us whether we would like apom or kopitiam fare. KH wanted the latter, so we visited a branch of Cheong Foh . The place has a very different feel because it's renovated to look like a food court, where every food stall has their own counter, and the who...

Sunday was SK's birthday, but the celebration was deferred to a week later. Watched a movie with mum at GSC Paradigm Mall after church. "Cook Up A Storm" is story about a cook off between a Cantonese street cook and a French-trained hoity-toity Michelin star chef. The underdog was played by Nicholas Tze, who was perfect for the angsty role, and the cute Jung Yong Hwa was cast as his rival. Much of the movie was a technicolor display of kung fu cookery in slow motion. You know, like how it would be if Neo cooked. In my opinion, it was entertaining enough, and it had a scene with a nice close up of Jung Yong Hwa ass. Out from the movie theater, I actually lined up for Tea Live , Brian Loo's new baby after his fallout with Chatime. It was a forty minute wait for the half-off bubble tea. Not sure if it tasted any different because I'm not a regular of Chatime. But a good thing was that my roasted milk tea and passion fruit tea was just the right level of sweetn...

I did not wake up bright and early on Christmas morning. Just as I hit the send button on What's App asking my sister whether the kids had woken up, I heard a commotion downstairs. No mistaking it-- it was The Tribe. My sister had moved all the presents to my place. And it was a lot of presents. Combined with presents from SK and I, it was truly a formidable heap! The excitement and anticipation from the kids was palpable. However, they had to wait a little while longer. All of us donned our customized Christmas T-shirts and took a group photo first. Before we began, I brought out a laundry basket to contain all the discarded gift wrapping. The kids went through their presents like locusts. They got toys, shoes, clothes, bags, and water tumblers. Guess they were on Santa's Good list else they would have received white envelopes filled with cash from Sump'n Claus. Got some pretty nice stuff for Christmas this year: 1. Black Herschel laptop bag from The Tribe. 2. Leg...

In order to make it to English mass at SIC, we had to get up at 7:00 AM. After getting ready, one still needs to fuss over the sleepy kids. At church, we bundled them into the soundproof family room and hoped that they would not be too rowdy. Big Monster asked me a legit question: Big Monster: Is Jesus dead? Moi: Yes, but he resurrected after three days. Big Monster: Oh, someone threw him a Potion of Regeneration. In case you were wondering, he was talking about something from Minecraft! Obsessed with that game, they are. We ate breakfast at Mian then headed home. Mum needed to prepare for her event in the afternoon. She boiled the tang yuan and packed loads of pots and ladles. There was even a portable stove in the heap of stuff. Sent her out to Happy Garden where she would carpool to Brickfields with her friends. It's daunting to handle the two monsters alone so I employed the help of KH. Picked him up and went for a late lunch at Secret Loc Cafe , Kuchai Lama....

Once in a while, a subset of the BFF get together when the opportunity presents itself. We were lucky enough to catch Alexander the Gay who had relocated to Singapore for years. Together with KH, Khatijah, Janvier, and of course JL, we met up for lunch at Naughty Nuri's , Desa Sri Hartamas for a babi  lunch. My first time at that outlet actually. They have two seating areas, one indoor and one 'outdoor'. KH and I were the first to arrive, so we were tasked with choosing a table. Sounds like an easy task no? Believe it or not, we actually changed tables a total of five times trying to find the coolest spot and to avoid the stinky smell of 'salted fish' ( smelled like rotting rubbish to me ) in the restaurant. Once we found the most optimum spot, we could finally think about the food. We shared a rack of their famous pork ribs, grilled cumi-cumi , Indonesian fried noodles, and salad ( that's full of roast pork-- the best way to enjoy vegetables ). Lunch was ...

Decided to bring the kids to watch Illumination's "Sing"  after seeing how the kids enjoyed the YouTube trailers. They seem to be particularly fond of the bunnies singing "Anaconda". Gunther the pig's rendition of "Bad Romance" also resonated with them. Watched it at IOI Mall with KH. The kids gave it two thumbs up. Even Little Monster gave his full attention. Wonder how much royalty they paid to cover all those songs. Right after the movie, the kids were screaming for dinner. To make things simple, we dined at TGIF. Tortillas, fajitas and quesadillas seem to be compatible with their appetite. The kids were sort of hyperactive after the movie. Was tempted to ply them with Long Island Iced Tea! That ended my movie date with KH..... and the kids... and my mum.

A zombie movie from Korea is as groundbreaking as kimchi from India. Watched it with KH after a huge lunch at Bru Cafe , Faber Towers. The calzone we ordered was big enough to feed two. On top of that, I ordered a mound of pasta topped with a cheese covered baked chicken thigh. If you're a fan of cheese wheel pastas, you can have that there too. " Train to Busan "  was surprisingly good. The premise is quite fresh, zombies on a train. Definitely better than snakes on an aircraft. Character development was present. It was fast-paced. There's some critique on society if you care to look for it. Funny moments properly planted. Eye candy provided by Gong Yoo ( unfortunately he didn't show any skin ). Perfect recipe for a likable movie. And so many memes appeared online since it coincided with major LRT breakdowns in the city. With the popularity of this movie, Korean beauty companies would undoubtedly roll out products to recreate that dazzling zombie complex...