will i am's delayed diary

Tried my level best to catch up. Finally I'm blogging about 2023, although its 2024 in just a couple of days. No parties, no raves for New Year's Eve. Typical for me to spend it at church although in recent years, there's no fireworks or fellowship. Just the mandatory mass, and "Year in Review" video.  In the first week of 2023, there was already a wake service for a fellow BEC member. The death statistics have been higher than usual. On a happier note, the year started with a gathering at Apollo's house. His mum cooked up a storm again, and we had good bitching session. In terms of the Lunar Chinese New Year, preparations were heating up everywhere. The morning market was flooded with new year goodies, and students peddling calligraphy. Along with it, the signature traffic gridlock. At church, decorations were also in full swing with help from various Mandarin BECs. All sorts of design ideas were thrown around, and combined with a mash of whatever we could fi...

Christmas 2022 was memorable in the sense that there was a water cut on the 24th. Many a Christian housewife nust have been pissed with SYABAS. Christmas morning mass at church experienced a windfall turnout, no doubt bolstered by the seasonal CEO ( Christmas & Easter Only ) parishioners. Met up with the Tribe for a meh lunch of quinoa nasi lemak La Juiceria Superfoods . Then it was a 40-minute wait at Oomph Bukit Jalil, for a crazy noisy dessert session. Frankly, the lack of noise dampening at the place really annoys me. The kids were much more interested with the opening of the Christmas presents back home.   Later that night, I pulled on my red jockstrap, and  red Tartan pants to attend Terrance and Phillip's Christmas potluck. Lots of food ( KH decided to bring pizza much to my chagrin ), fun, drinks, and coffee. For some reason, the party is always segregated into the dining table gang, and the living room gang. And among the guests, there will be a midnight ga...

Lo and behold, this glamorous bowl of tang yuan  from my mum's kitchen marks a 1-year backlog for my blog! 

After a year of soreness and discomfort in my left thumb , and one useless trip to the orthopaedic specialist,  I decided to let my chiropractor look at the problem. Judging by the way the chiropractor tried to diagnose my condition, I don't think that he had the expertise. Still, that didn't stop him for trying dry needling on my palm. He chose 4 points-- 2 at the fleshy base of the thumb, and another 2 above the webbing of the thumb. Dry needling of the hand is very different from what I experienced for my back. It felt like an immense pressure going through my palm, bordering on pain. My left hand felt kind of numb after the treatment. And after I got home, there was some bruising at the area. Felt more sore than usual, but after a few days, the familiar chronic discomfort returned. Guess it didn't help at all.   

Before 2022 ended, KH insisted that we have a BFF gathering. Managed to round up Janvier, The Chief, Jaded Jeremy, Bunny, SimonLover, and ForIHaveSinned to join. Our dinner location was at Seppia & Polpo at Starling Mall. Having happened nearly a year ago, I really forgot my opinion about the food. And I forgot to leave a Google Maps review. In addition to wrapping up the year, it was an impromptu birthday celebration for ForIHaveSinned. Although he is my senior, his plump and perky ass puts many young boys to shame. Coincidentally, we bumped into TummyFull at the mall, as he was hosting some 'interest group' friends from out of town. The heavy rain outside limited our choices for dessert to the cafe inside Book Excess. Hang in there, I should be blogging about 2023 before 2024 arrives!

At the end of 2022. my neighbour's daughter got married, so mum and I received an invitation to their wedding reception. Been a while since I've been to a Malay wedding, and I must say that times have changed. Back when I was a kid, the typical Malay kenduri ( banquet ) was not done in a buffet fashion. Guests dined in quads, where when four guests sat down together at a long table, food would be served. Following the theme, there would be four dishes with a washing jug in the middle ( food tastes better when you eat with your hands! ). Typical dishes are ayam masak merah , rendang daging , acar , and papadam . And of course there would be rice, usually nasi minyak . At my neighbour's wedding, some of the traditional dishes were present in the buffet spread,  but there were many added bonuses. like an apam balik station, cendol station,  curry noodles station, and  roti jala.  Also the traditional door gift of bunga telur  ( hard-boiled egg decorated like a fl...

Started a new job in December 2022, and I'm blogging about it 11 months later. Guess its an indication of how crazy it has been for me at the new place. Collected my brand new Macbook Air on the first day and commenced my honeymoon month of internal training. All the while I was pscyhed up about jumping into the thick of things, but now I understand why my mentor asked me to enjoy my first month. My new role can be condensed into a few key words: Amazon Web Services Pre-sales Migration Malaysia region Colleagues are generally approachable, and my boss is very down-to-earth, and defiitely not the stingy Chinaman variety. The environment is fun, but things get pretty fast-paced at times. With AWS as our principal, it is both a blessing and a curse. Just have to work within the parameters. Although I am supposed to be pre-sales, I eventually got sucked into project implementation due to lack of manpower and role segregation. Guess I'll talk more about those things in my future pos...