will i am's delayed diary

Venetian Masks , swiped from williamnyk on Flickr. Being ever resourceful, SK managed to commandeer at Starwood Privilege Card from a friend. The card entitles the holder to 50% off all food items in restaurants that belong to Le Meridien, Westin and Sheraton. So on Friday, SK and I decided to have lunch at Favola , Le Meridien, just a stone's throw from my workplace. The restaurant is located on the eight floor and the interior decoration was kinda nice. I was particularly drawn to whole lot of Venetian masks on the walls. The chairs were tall and comfy and the ceiling looked like the banquet halls of old. The menus were rolled up pieces of thick paper fastened by mini leather belts. In the end, we ordered a couple of chef's recommendations~ Risotto con Cappesante ( with pan-seared XL scallops! ), Conchiglioni Marinara al Cortoccio ( baked in a paper parcel with seafood and Parmesan cheese ) and closed with a Illy Coffee-inspired Tiramisu that was large enough for three ( I c

She asked me to relax. Was told that I would feel some pain. She poked me. It wasn't bad. Stopped a while. And moved around a bit. She asked me to change positions. The angle was wrong it seemed. My poor hands. The doctor was only able to draw blood from my left hand. Hi guys and gals, this is a follow-up post from my cholesterol shocker the other day. Was very touched that many people were concerned with my health. I did go to see a GP to get some advice on the situation. As expected, the doctor did not trust the results from the pharmacy and ordered for another test. In two days, the nurse called and asked me to see the doctor again. It was confirmed, I have high cholesterol levels. The total cholesterol was a bit lower, but the LDL was still at an ugly level. I was given a piece of paper from the American Heart Association detailing the cholesterol levels of common foods items. And she told me to exercise and come back for check-up in three months. That was

Blackwell's parcel , swiped from ark on Flickr. Went to the Poslaju Center at Brickfields to courier some legal documents to my brother to sign. Yes, the lawyer firm finally drew up the documents for the perfection of charge after months and months. Months ago: "Fail tu... dah lama kan... emmm... bukan saya in charge la..." "Err... saya belum buat la. Sekarang saya kerja kat reception. Nanti la bulan depan saya call you semula..." Pening right? So, I passed the heavy envelope to the woman at the Poslaju counter. Moi: Ke Singapura. Poslaju: RM30. Moi: Er... lekat macam tu je? Tak letak dalam plastik ke? Poslaju: Plastik tu takde stok. Moi: Tak koyak ke nanti sampul tu? Poslaju: Emmm... Insyallah tak koyak. Moi: (ARGGHHH) Bagi saya celotape tu, saya nak tampal-tampal sikit. So is it an act of God if my package actually arrives at the destination?

Assam Fish , swiped from williamnyk on Flickr. Brisk business for my sister and BIL this year has them working round the clock, seven days a week. As a result, little Cyan is still sleeping over at my place. So on Sunday, he followed us out to church. The kid was well-behaved that day. He just moved around a lot, at least he did not make noise or speak loudly. Halfway through mass, he whacked half a blueberry bun and that kinda spoiled his appetite for lunch. Couldn't even coax him to eat more of his favourite nasi lemak at Heritage Village Cafe . The rice was quite standard. I should let my brother try it the next he is back. In addition to this, mum and I shared a set of steamed rice with assam fish ( it was sitting in a mixture of oil and vinegar, but really tasty, they used threadfin, really worth the price ), jiu hu char and lobak . After lunch, I went back to the hair products shop at Taman Megah to have the stylist look at my scalp. For some unknown reason, my scalp has

CARS Chase Chick Hicks with piston cup , swiped from jadafiend on Flickr. Here's how little Cyan sings the national anthem: "Negaraku, rumah tumpahnya darahku..." I have failed in my many attempts to correct him. LOL. From what I can tell, he sings Bahasa Melayu songs phonetically. Sometimes he combines several words together and mumble them out ala Jay Chou. But at least he sings "Rasa Sayang" very well. Cyan learned it in conjunction with his pre-school sports day. He proudly brought home a silver trophy ( a kiddy telematch ) which he affectionately calls the "Piston Cup". Watched too much "Cars" apparently. So cute, right?

Desktop Blood Test , swiped from juhansonin on Flickr. In 2010, I did a yearly blood test at Pathlab and found that my total cholesterol had shot up from borderline high to 7.00 MMOL/L. The recommended range is for it to be lower than 5.20! From then on, I started taking rolled oats every morning and even tried plant sterols that supposedly compete with cholesterol absorption in the bloodstream. I was already very conscious about my diet ( no chicken skin and lard ) and mum never did believe in fried and oily foods. So, during my morning marketing, I took a simple test at the pharmacy. The results from the handheld device didn't show any improvement. According to it, my LDL had shot up to 5.15 from 4.80! The only good news was that my HDL was slightly higher at 1.56 and my triglycerides dropped from 1.40 to 0.75. The Total Cholesterol / HDL ratio was also slightly better at 4.50. KH consoled me by saying that at least things did not get worse. But truthfully, I expected to see

During a What's App conversation, Nicky05 let loose that Bear was hospitalized for lung collapse! Sounded really serious so I SMS-ed Pikey for further details. Turns out that Bear was having bad health over the past month and he suddenly encountered breathing difficulties. With one day of holiday left, might as well make good use of it by visiting the poor Bear at Selayang Hospital. Reached there at about noon with little hassle on the road. Selayang Hospital is quite large with elevators ( full of anti-Anwar Ibrahim graffiti ) that wait for no one. And it has a peculiar fountain outside that practically sprays water on to the ground. I guess it doubles as a sprinkler. And the men's room had plenty of propositions for gay sex. The wards were quite large. As we walked in, saw pharmacists preparing medication for the wards. They looked VERY young. Form 3?! The medical assistants seemed gentle and patient, surpassing the standards at some private hospitals I had seen. By the ti

The angry preacher ! , swiped from Gísli Dúa on Flickr. Last week's mass was quite interesting. Perhaps the Raya Haji holiday had threw a spannar in the gears. The hymns were wrong. The projectionist did not sync with the choir. The pianist could have very well been drunk. Amazingly, the priest did not have a cow. However, he did sound about something else. He was kinda pissed with the fact that every week, they fish out rubbish from the mass collection. Some parishioners or guests see fit to throw used tissues, money that is not of legal tender and receipts into the collection bag. Having worked with the hospitality ministry for so long, I had never noticed people dropping in anything other than money. I was quite shocked. Secondly, he complained about certain church-goers who park indiscrimanately just because their cars are more luxurious than others. Arguments often break out and tempers flare. Makes one wonder if "Love Thy Neighbour" flies out the window the second

Lab 101 , swiped from williamnyk on Flickr. Deviating from the norm, I did not go marketing last Saturday as mum had a breakfast gathering with her friends. I slept in instead and followed SK to work at about 9:00am. She had a job order to produce six facial care products, so she offered me to tag along and see how it was done. before starting work, we had breakfast at Damansara Uptown. Restoran Bintang served up quite a decent plate of Hakka noodles. In just under two hours she whipped up a batch of the products with some leftovers to spare for our own use. Breezed through the whole process while briefly explaining what she was dosing into the beaker. There was a reason for each ingredient and for everything she did there was a trick to balance things out. After dumping everything in ala Chef Wan while making his rendang ( everything was agak-agak ), she would run the homogenizer. As the assistant, I would be fetching her glassware, filling water and cleaning up. Quite interesting

Lavazza , swiped from williamnyk on Flickr. Lifebook gave us a heads up that Bata was having a warehouse sale at Viva Home, so we fired up the GPS and headed there in the morning. Believe it or not, Bata put up a giant billboard on the pedestrian bridge across Jalan Loke Yew just to promote the event. Everything was priced at MYR5 and MYR10. The shoes were new and all sizes were available. Never seen a more sincere and genuine warehouse sale in my life. Mum and SK bought more than ten pairs in total. Truly cheap. Even saw an imitation of the Betula that I was wearing. Ish. For lunch, we walked in Lavazza Cafe . The decor was quite unique with retro floral chairs at one end and Mad Hatter high-backed style in another. I ordered the Hawaiian-style pasta ( imagine a carbonara with coconut milk ) with roasted chicken and SK ordered the beef burger. The burger patty was impressive. I liked the taste and the texture. Left soon after lunch and headed on home. However, I took a wrong turn and

Art Expo Malaysia 2011 I , swiped from williamnyk on Flickr. Received a notification from SK that POD was in town on Thursday to attend Art Expo Malaysia 2011 at the MATRADE Building near Jalan Duta. He had VIP tickets so he asked us to tag along to the event. It was the official launching before it was open to the public, so we got the chance to rub shoulders with the who's who of the art scene. Sad right? That sentence actually fails to impress even myself because I don't even who is who in the art scene. LOL. The royal patrons was the royalty from Perlis and when the VIPs arrived, I did not recognize any of them. We thought they would be checking tickets, but apparently not. Just waltzed right in. By the time we arrived, POD had just came in by taxi from LCCT. Collected the one inch thick guide book from the information counter and proceeded to browse the art. Although the guide book listed a whole list of participating countries, I felt that the bulk of the booths were fr

SK needed to change her watch's battery, so I walked into a shop in OUG and found this cutie. Tall, fair, spiky hair and a nice build. This was my third attempt. Not too flattering an angle, methinks. Too bad I screwed up two chances to get his side profile. Maybe next time. Took him very little time to change the battery. I reluctantly paid the MYR12 and peeled my eyes away. I showed this photo to WZ and he actually managed to tell me where he was from! Seems that he had stalked this cutie long before me!

Food Street , swiped from williamnyk on Flickr. Travelled to Teluk Intan again for two reasons. One was for All Soul's Day ( decided to do it early to avoid any Raya Haji madness ) and the other was to settle some of mum's legal issues. Don't worry, not litigation, but conveyancing. In order to kill two birds with one stone, had take a day off and depart on a Friday. Woke up 4:30am that day to get ready. Goodness. However, my BIL did not turn up until 6:30am. Didn't really matter since we made good time on the road and arrived in town at about 9:00am. Had to switch drivers halfway after BIL realized that he did not bring his wallet! Luckily I managed to catch some forty winks during the early part of the journey. First things first, we went to the market for some breakfast. Some turf wars were going on between the hawker stalls so we split into two tables. BIL, sis and bro had yellow sticky rice, nasi lemak and economy fried noodles while mum and I went for curry nood

john constantine by Gabriel Hardman , swiped from giantsizegeek on Flickr. In your circle of friends, which name is the gayest of them all? For me, Jason takes the prize. But someone recently remarked, "Isn't it Calvin ?" What is it for you? "First rule of magic: Don't let anyone know your real name. Names have power." -- John Constantine, Books of Magic

Bamboo Groove, Kyoto , swiped from Yuki--chan on Flickr. Little Cyan is already three years old and he is beginning to show his tiger stripes. The kid is quite a handful now and is difficult to manage. A stubborn streak is showing up where he refuses to listen to reason and will just throw a tantrum until he gets what he wants. Most of the time, we have to use reverse psychology. So far, his parents have still been sticking to the modern school of child upbringing and have not resorted to more 'manual' methods. In my opinion, the kid has already seen through the whole situation and knows that he will eventually get his way. As the evil uncle, my temper is already at near blowing point. But of course I will respect his parent's wishes. But I think there's really not much choice anymore. A rotan for Christmas! Spare the rod and spoil the child? Melentur buluh biarlah dari rebungnya? What do you think?

Pentagonal , swiped from williamnyk on Flickr. Halfway through mass on Sunday, the power was cut off. No lights. No PA system. No projector. The poor deacon had to shout through his sermon. Fortunately, the air-conditioning was still running. At first, I thought it was a blown fuse or something, but it turned out that even the nearby shops were blacked out. Oh well. Lunch was at SK's place. Had been a long time since she cooked. She tried a few unconventional dishes that day-- steamed egg with fish ( to please my nephew. Not really a good combination because the dish ended up quite fishy ), steamed chicken wings with salted egg and Chinese parsley ( an award-winning dish in Singapore in seems! ), stir-fried choy yun , blanched lean pork and herbal soup. A little drama happened after lunch because Cyan got over-zealous in drinking his water that he vomitted all over my mum in the bathroom. Opps! Took us some time to clean up before heading home. Not long after getting home, we went

Lammeeya III , swiped from williamnyk on Flickr. Last Sunday, SK and I attended English mass before heading off to Lammeeya , Damansara Uptown for breakfast. The reason for the change in routine was because KT's graduation was on that day. We wanted to congratulate her for obtaining her masters degree in educational psychology from UPM. Breakfast consisted of their trademark lam mee and one udon version. Shared between the three of us as the set also came with meatballs and fried beancurd skin. Truth be told, I love their meatballs althought I am not a fan of meatballs. The texture is good and it has the fragrance of dried cuttlefish. Yummy! Their lam mee is good, but every time I eat it, I tell myself that I have stay away for at least three months. Don't know why. We reached UPM at about 11:00am. The sun was relentless and the designated car park was quite far from the main hall. However, most people were too happy to notice that they were being grilled under their mortar

Hi guys and gals! I'm back with a long overdue entry on MRT cuties. It's been dry season on the LRT lately, so luckily KH has some goodies for all of you. Quite the norm these days for commuters to be looking at their smart phones for the whole journey. No more staring into space and digging our noses. Even I can't keep my iPhone in my pocket for more than two minutes. I would be thinking that there's some kind of notification or something. So most of the time, I'd be checking my inbox, looking at FB, playing Tiny Tower ( a bit malas these days ) and checking out photos on Instagram ( read: looking for skanky pics ). I rarely stuff my ears and listen to music. Has been ages since I updated my playlist too. Any recommendations for my "On the Go" playlist? Oh yeah, and one more thing. Just look at those two guys. They represent two categories of commuters. The guy on the left loves his bag more than his back, so he keeps it slung. The guy on the right doesn

Afternoon Tea , swiped from williamnyk on Flickr. Grat asked me out for afternoon tea on Saturday ( so ngam it was a Guan Yin feast day ) at The Gardens Mall and just so happened Finnegan was in town again so I requested them to combine the meet. Luckily both of 'em were obliging ( but I think they did not have a choice ). Sorry to say I was late for half an hour that day, so by the time I arrived at Pastis , I saw Grat sipping Lavazzo coffee at one table and Finnegan just beside him reading a book. I should have described Finnegan to Grat so that perhaps they could have kept each other occupied before my arrival. According to Grat, he saw Finnegan earlier, wondering why an ang moh was pacing up and down. LOL. without wasting any time, I asked Finnegan to move over to our table and introduced him to Grat and SK. At the start of the conversation, we paid our full attention to the guest but as time went we couldn't help ourselves but to bith about local issues and at times laps

Last Friday, Pooh made a visit to KL with his bf, ZaiZai. As usual, he asked me to organize a dinner party. A thankless job really. Since he was staying with Jo Tetek at Puchong Jaya, I decided to have it at The Geographer at IOI Boulevard. On arrival, SK and I found the place to be super crowded, maklumlah Friday is drinking night. On top of that, it was noisy and full of ciggie smoke, but I guess that is to be expected from a bar. Since everyone else had not arrived, we went scouting for an alternative. Upon seeing The Pork Place , we checked out the menu and decided that it was kosher for our purposes. :P. At first I thought it was only a party of serven, but at the last minute, Pooh told me to set a table for twelve. Goodness. And after everything was ready, he told me that there were actually two muslims coming. I was flabbergasted. Bah. I just waited for him to arrive and decide further upon it. Luckily, his friend did not mind it and found something pork-less to eat. That n

Typical Breakfast , swiped from williamnyk on Flickr. Early next morning, we packed up and got ready to check out. Before heading to mass, Sis brought us to breakfast at Restoran Weng Soh Siew that is famous for two things-- nasi lemak and yu kaw noodles. To me, yu kaw noodles is basically fishball and fishcake noodles done in the dry style. Doesn't sound very special right? But the hor fun was very good ( reminiscent of a lighter chu cheong fun ) and the chili gravy that come with the food was good. To me, the nasi lemak was just average. Typical Chinese version that is sweet-ish with kangkung . But little Cyan whacked it all anyway. We were supposed to celebrate mass at St. Francis Xavier Church in town, but having passed by St. Peter's Church first, we decided to go there instead. It's the oldes church in Melaka, built in 1710. It had been renovated with a wood-paneled ceiling but I guess most of the original architecture remained. The altar was also pre-dominan