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Mum Comes Down

Posted on May 15, 2009 admin

I think I’ve kinda given up on my Project 365. I was trying to trace back any pictures I had taken in the past week but the truth is that I didn’t have many.

When you’re stricken with Dengue the last thing that actually crosses your mind is

“Hey… let me take a picture of my bed where I spent most my day so I can remember this for the rest of my life”.

So I missed out so many photos in the past week that I’ve decided to just abandon the project, at least just for namesake. One thing I liked about Project 365 is that it gave me a reason to take any random picture and just write about that picture rather than sometimes having to do a whole full length blog post. I’m going to keep doing that.

Anyway, speaking of photos… today against Doctor’s orders, I went back to work for a while. Was just feeling bored staying at home for so long. Then for lunch, I celebrated my recovery with the rest of the Nuffies by going to Klang for BAK KUT TEH!

Ohh it was just so worth the long drive there! Look at my excitement upon eye contact with the pot of yummy Bak Kut Teh!

——————-

My mum came down to KL today and she’s staying for the weekend. She basically wanted to come down to take care of me for a while because she says I’ve been eating out so much lately that I should have some home cooked food. So she came down from Penang just to cook for me.

She went through all my kitchen supplies while I was at work and she was appalled!

“How can you not have a rice cooker?”…

“How could you still use these pots and pans? They’re so damn old they’re falling apart!”

I guess when you live alone at your place as a bachelor and the most cooking you do is some pasta here and there, you never feel how ill-equipped your kitchen is. Hey when I need to cook rice I use a pot. I kinda like manually cooked rice too because at the bottom of the rice you get these bits of rice that stick together and are a little chewy.

Those are just the best if you ask me. Princess doesn’t agree though, she says I’m weird for liking something like that. So my mum decided to drag me out this afternoon to go shopping… for kitchen supplies.

You name it, everything from rice cookers, to knives to stainless steel bowls to wash things in or something, we bought.

Way to stimulate the Malaysian economy.

Then my mum came back and she cooked some nice old home cooked dinner for us.

Throughout the whole dinner she was telling Princess how to cook this and that this herb is good for this and that. Princess was just listening on without realizing what my mum was probably trying to impart on to her. Mum was teaching Princess how to COOK for me and take care of me! Haha!

Don’t laugh at Princess though. I see it in her… I see a very domesticated girl somewhere deep inside of that career woman. One day she’ll grow into it. She’ll hang up her mini-skirts and put on a bright yellow apron.

Right Princess? 🙂

Papaya Leaf Juice

Posted on May 14, 2009 admin

Hello everyone!

Thanks so much for all your caring comments in the previous post. It meant more to me than you guys think… the fact that you guys actually care and how some of you even went as far as to suggest remedies and things to do. Thank you so much. You guys made me feel better about eating porridge and macaroni soup for days… or for like missing a party that had these angels in them.

I’ve been feeling better today. My fever has stopped and my rashes have begun to subside. It doesn’t itch anymore but it still feels damn bloody good when I scratch so once in a while I let loose and scratch myself like a monkey.

My recent blood test showed that my platelet count was increasing so the Doctor says that indicates that I’m on the road to recovery. He told me that I should stay at home and rest though until at least next week. That’s good news considering just a few days ago the Doctor was considering admitting me into a hospital.

I don’t know how I took a sudden turn for the improvement but I think it may have had to do with some very very bitter chinese medicine that Princess‘ mum made for me. It was this black soup-like thing made out of some herbs but that was nothing compared to something else I had in the past few days.

Apparently Princess’ mum knew of a remedy that would increase a person’s platelet count during a case of dengue. The remedy lies in this.

Not not the tree, not the fruit… but the leaf.

Princess’ Dad basically went out around her neighbourhood one day to pluck some papaya tree leaves from someone else’s house. (If you live in Subang and your papaya tree is missing some leaves, please just know that they were for a good cause).

Once he brought it back, Princess’ mum washed the leaf, then took it apart and then mashed it up until all was left were little green leaf bits. Then she took those leaves out and squeezed it and out came this little dark green liquid. She put it in a bowl and asked me to drink it up.

It smelled quite fragrant. Really had the smell of just papaya but it looked a little icky when you thought about where it came from. Nevertheless I held my breath and just swallowed the whole thing.

The very same second I felt the green liquid run through my mouth into my throat I realized I had made a mistake. I should’ve mixed it with something… I don’t know what.. root beer or something but SOMETHING. It tasted extremely bitter but I think Hsin Ee put it best.

“It’s not just that it’s bitter… it’s like your tongue takes a trip to hell and back”.

Even after a full minute has passed after I downed it, the bitter taste of the papaya leaf juice remained in my mouth. Princess’ mum who always had a solution for something came up with a great idea. She took out a packet of those multi-coloured sugar coated sweets and told me to take one.

My mouth felt soooo much better after that.

Was it worth it? Well…. I think it’s all these little things that Princess’ parents did for me that helped me get better a lot quicker. So thank you Uncle and Aunty….

And thank you Princess, for taking care of me these few days. She was so cute.

When Princess and I first got together she said to me

“I don’t know if I’ll be good at taking care of you… but I want to and I’ll try”.

She took care of me really really well.

Now that I’m getting better… I need to celebrate by eating some proper food. Seriously.. days and days of this…

What I need is a good old pot of Klang Bak Kut Teh right now!

My only worry is that I’m still feeling a little weak and lethargic. I worry I might fall asleep on the way to Klang and wake up only to find out that I missed lunch!

Dengue Fever

Posted on May 12, 2009 admin

If you’re wondering why my updates have been a bit scarce lately…. it’s because I’ve been down with what may very well be Dengue Fever.

1. After 5 days of persistent fever I went to take a blood test yesterday morning.

2. The minute I asked for a dengue test, the nurse said “Ohh yes I can see the rashes on your hands. Sign of dengue.”.

I looked down at my hands and went

“What? Wow… I didn’t notice the rashes before”.

I really didn’t.

3. Nurse jabbed the needle in me and I felt a sharp excruciating pain for like 20 seconds when I finally thought it was over only to hear the nurse say “Oh… no wonder the blood is not coming out. You’re gripping too tight”.

4. She tried again and got the blood sample out successfully the second time round. Any more than that second time I was going to request she put me on general anesthetic!

5. Lay it bed all day yesterday feeling a little weak.

6. Test results came back close to 5pm. Tested negative for dengue but nurse said I had a “suspiciously low” platelet count which may indicate dengue although they can’t seem to find the virus yet. Was told to go again the next morning for another blood test (Great!)

7. Had dinner at Princess‘ place. Her parents were really nice to not only cook some nice home cooked food for me but prepare all sorts of chinese remedies to bring my platelet count up.

8. Princess followed me home that night and stayed with me.

9. Covered myself with mosquito repellent to make sure my Dengue doesn’t spread to anyone else apart from me. The smell of that repellent on my skin reminded me of my boy scout days. Just a torch light and a tent and I’m home free!

10. Woke up this morning, dropped Princess off at work and went to get my second blood test. Fever seems gone this morning but I never really had much of a high-fever in the past few days to begin with. Funny form of Dengue I have.

11. Now I’m at home about to take a nap. Waiting for my test results to come back in a few hours. It’s most likely going to test positive for Dengue by now and I’m probably going to be hospitalized for the next few days.

Will update again when I can. So much to blog about actually. Oh well … next time it is.

Murphy’s Law

Posted on May 9, 2009 admin

They say when bad things happen, they all happen all in one go.

I went to see another doctor yesterday to get a second opinion of my relentless fever. He stuck an ice-cream stick in my mouth, followed by a thermometer and pressed his statoscope around my chest and on my back.

Then he came to a conclusion that my fever was still on and if it doesn’t get better by Monday I will have to go for a blood test to check for Dengue. This is when I started to panic a little bit because I was supposed to go to Phuket the next day (ie today) for a short break with Princess. A much needed break just to get away from the world a little bit.

So I asked

“Hey uhmmm Doc, I’m supposed to go to Phuket tomorrow…. can ah?”

He laughed it off

“Haha you probably won’t even make it past the airport”.

I imagined myself and Princess walking through Phuket airport with our bags and all after just arriving until we come to the thermal scanner that checks to see if anyone has a fever (which happens to be one of the symptoms of Swine Flu).

They’re going to detect my fever and suddenly you’re going to hear the health officials shouting something in Thai and pointing at me. Before I know it they would all pounce on me and quarantine me for 7 days for fear that I might have Swine Flu.

Princess will be screaming and shouting for help but they’ll just give her some candy and she’ll forget I even went missing until a week later.

That thought was enough for me to decide that I had to cancel my trip. Problem was though… hotels can be changed.. no problem. But my flights were booked with Air Asia which just like any other budget airline did not allow cancellations. So if I don’t show up for my flight it just means I lose the whole fare which was something like RM500 per ticket so it was over RM1,000 bucks.

I called my Dad up to ask for advice and being someone who refuses to fly budget airlines all his life he took the opportunity to lecture me

“SEE?? This is what happens when you kiam siap and try to pay peanuts. If you were flying MAS you could postpone the flight without having to lose your whole ticket”.

I was going to say

“But but… because I only have to pay peanuts, now everyone can fly……”

Then I remembered the recent promotions that MAS had been having recently (Like the Stimulus Package) that really significantly made their tickets very very much more affordable. So in the end I chose to put my head down, shut up and take the scolding from my Dad.

I ended up sending Air Asia a letter from my doctor stating that I wasn’t fit to travel. I don’t know yet if Air Asia will end up allowing me to postpone my flights without me having to pay for another full price ticket but I don’t think they’re obligated too anyway. I mean the reason why you get your flights so much cheaper is you give up that flexibility to change them too.

I guess this episode really made me realize something.

When people compare budget airlines (like Air Asia) to full service airlines (like MAS), they compare the difference in having to pay for the food, in the service, in the slightly further away airport… but seldom do we look at the flexibility in changing your flights last minute if you were to fall sick or should any other form of emergency happen. Why? Because it doesn’t really happen that often but when it does, you end up losing quite a lot of money.

It’s not that either one is bad or good. Just like anything in life. If you pay more for something you get more, if you pay less then you get less.

I fly both airlines regularly but it just so happens that I fell sick before an Air Asia flight instead of an MAS one. So I guess that’s just bad luck.

Update: Thanks to the enlightenment of Eve and Michelle who just left their comments here, it appears that you can postpone your Air Asia flight after all. Just pay a RM110 fee and the difference for the price of the new flight (if any). Not yet 100% sure about this yet since I was told by others that I won’t be allowed to change my flights but if it’s true then that’s a bit of good news. I guess things are beginning to get better already.

All Work and No Play Makes Tim a Sick Boy

Posted on May 7, 2009 admin

Okay I’ve been bad.

Really bad.

Because I haven’t updated my Project 365 for a while.

BUT BUT BUT!!!

There is hope… because I have a picture for every day of the past few days. Let me start at 2nd May 2009 where I left off.

This is Princess and me at my bro’s apartment in Singapore just right after we went for dinner.

Project 365: Day 76, 2nd May 2009

We hopped on the bus home the next day and she camwhored to take this picture. I’m so glad she did because I forgot to take a picture myself for Project 365.

Project 365: Day 77, 3rd May 2009

This is us in the bus… I think

The next day was a workday for all of us. It was also the first day of work for Jestina, one of our latest Nuffies.

Project 365: Day 78, 4th May 2009

We went for lunch at Berjaya Times Square then dropped by Krispy Kreme to get some donuts. Surprisingly there wasn’t a queue at all. I guess maybe Malaysians have gotten through with the donut crazy phase.

On Tuesday I had the workshop there I was supposed to give about Blog Marketing & New Media.

This is Isabella, one of the participants of the workshop. I think she is damn funny.

See the way she smile haha!

This is almost everyone who were at the workshop I think in total there were 31 people who went, out of the 35 places we had.

Project 365: Day 79, 5th May 2009

Right after we took this picture a few people came out from the toilet having just missed the group photo. So we took another one with the professional camera but not with mine 🙁

Took a picture with some of the Nuffies who went and Kim though.

The next few days following the workshop were terribly dreadful for me. I woke up Wednesday morning at around 6.30AM to go to the gym. But was feeling very tired and with a painful stiff neck, I decided to just skip gym.

Then I woke up a little bit later only to realize that I was having a fever. I took a couple of panadols then went to see a doctor. The good news is that I wasn’t coughing or anything. All I had was a fever that kept coming back so that ruled out Swine Flu *whew*. Plus I haven’t been to any Swine Flu infected countries so I guess that gave confidence to the Doc to say that I’m clear of all that.

I went home that afternoon and lay down in bed to rest but just about every 5 minutes that passed I would get one phone call. So I eventually gave up and decided to turn off my phone to rest in peace.

I spent most of my day on my bed.

Project 365: Day 80, 6th May 2009

Looking back I kinda realized why. The past few weeks or so I have been extremely stressed and busy. I kinda even worked through my long Labour Day weekend.

Here’s how my long weekend for Labour Day went.

On 1st of May I woke up at 6AM in the morning to catch an early morning bus to Singapore. There I had lunch and all then I spent the afternoon in some work discussions after dropping Princess off at Far East Plaza to do her shopping. By the time I got back to the hotel at night I was really tired.

Then the next day I woke up at 8AM to meet a potential business partner in the lobby of my hotel. After that I went for lunch with Pierre and Ming and spent that afternoon as well just in some work discussions in spite of how tired I was.

Then Sunday came and I had to head back to KL and on Monday I dragged myself out of bed early in the morning to go to the gym eventhough I woke up with a stiff neck.

Then I was up early on Tuesday morning again to spend a whole day on the workshop.

I guess it was just a matter of time before my body gave in to all the lack of rest I’ve been getting and I fell sick.

The good news is that I feel a lot better now. The fever has subsided and I’m feeling closer to normal now.

Project 365: Day 81, 7th May 2009

Was well enough to spend a good deal of my afternoon watching Las Vegas in my living room.

Hopefully I can head back to work tomorrow.

I think I’m desperately in need of a short break to get away from it all though.

Test Driving the Proton Satria Neo CPS

Posted on May 5, 2009 admin

Not too long ago I was having coffee with Mathew, a classmate of mine from secondary school. Since graduating from college he had found a job at a telco and had been very quickly climbing up the corporate ladder given his young age. While we were having that coffee he brought up the topic of buying himself a new car. He was driving an old Proton Satria and he had his eyes on the newer Proton Satria Neo.

I never really thought much about the Satria Neo. I mean it looked nice from the outside at all but I’ve never actually been into one before. Then just recently I was put in touch with Roslina from Proton and she wanted to let me test drive the car. She was even going to be nice enough to drive it from their showroom in Shah Alam all the way to my office in KL just to let me have an hour with it.

 The minute I opened the car door and saw the very sporty looking seats I was like 

“WOAH!!! What’s with the seats? Is this some special edition?”  

And Roslina said  “No… all the Satria Neos are like that”.

The front seats were nice and comfy. The back seats is tight like many other two-doors but it’s pretty comfy too.

I excitedly got into the car and starting pressing all the buttons I could find. Just to explore a little.

Then I put on my seat belt only to see my biggest horror: A manual gear box.

I had not driven a manual car since I passed my driving test.. it had been like… 7 years!

I warned Roslina that I was probably going to do really badly and she very kindly just said “It’s okay…”.
So off I went.  

5 minutes passed and I was doing really well. Roslina then praised me “Not bad what… you seem to be doing very well”.

Just 3 seconds after she said that, I released the clutch a bit too quickly and killed my engine. I was at the traffic light and all the cars in front of me had already gone passed. The cars behind me on the other hand were patiently waiting though. They didn’t honk me or anything but I looked into my rear view mirror in the time of crisis and noticed the guy in the car behind me shaking his head.

I quickly freed my gear, started the engine again and then tried to move forward but again, out of the anxiety I killed the engine again. This happened I think another 2 times then the light turned red.  I looked into the rear view mirror again at the guy behind me and this time he looked annoyed. He looked like if I were to make him miss the next light again he would get out of his car with a durian and smash the durian on my bonet.

I focused really hard when the light turned green next and fortunately managed to pull away from the light. I immediately insisted that I drive out of the city. All that traffic, way too many stops for a manual gear hopeless like me. So I drove out to Mont Kiara which was when I really got to try out the car. 

I liked it very very much!

Made me feel a little nostalgic. My first car was a Proton Wira, a car my dad gave me to when I first went to study A-levels in College. It wasn’t exactly like any of the sports cars that my other friends in college were driving but it got me place to place.

Sure the old car would have some problems here and there like power windows failing and all but it never once broke down on me or had any really serious problems.  Perhaps it was because I abided very strongly to my dad’s motto. “Take care of the car and the car will take care of you”.

The Satria Neo however is generations after the Wira and I must say the improvements are really obvious. It’s not just how the inside and outside of the car looks a lot nicer but it’s the experience of driving the car.

The handling is great plus when I drive at 110km/h, the steering doesn’t rattle anymore like my old Wira used to. I really enjoyed the drive except for my stressful moments of killing my own engine because I suck at the stick.   

Desmond called me when I was driving and I was too focused on trying to let my engine die again I didn’t answer his call. Then after a while I stopped by the road side to take a break and returned his call. I told him I was driving the new Satria Neo and he asked me how much it costs.  

I said: “About RM57,000”.

And he went “What?!? So cheap?! Can’t be so cheap!”  

So that could mean one or both of two things. Either the Satria is really cheap at that price or Desmondkiu is rich. I think probably both.

I returned the car later that day uninjured from anything (whew)…   

Thanks for the fun drive Proton

Spicy Chicken Wings (Level 1-30)

Posted on May 3, 2009 admin

I just got back from Singapore tonight. Was there over the weekend for some meetings and some work discussions.

Project 365: Day 75, 1st May 2009

Princess on the other hand came down with me to do some shopping and hair extensions (something that is apparently very IN right now eventhough I fail to understand why).

On Friday night Ming took Princess, Pierre and I to this open-air restaurant near the Singapore Flyer’s Club, where we saw some private jets owned by some of the super rich in Singapore. The restaurant we ate in though wasn’t posh or anything. It was one of those casual restaurants filled with young people with most of its tables outdoors.

The specialty of the place was supposed to be their spicy chicken wings, something they take real pride in. Let me tell you how.

On the menu you see at least a couple of pages dedicated to different “levels” of chicken wings. Each level is supposed to measure the hotness (spicyness) of the chicken wing. The higher the level the hotter it is. Level 1 is the least spicy and Level 30 is… if you don’t love your taste buds very much. If you eat above Level 20 of hotness they will actually PRINT out your name and stick it on the wall… I shit you not.

See the wall in this picture?

This is the perfect kind of place for Ming because he LOVES spicy food. Every time he comes down to KL he will go for the Chili Pan Mee and he will max out the chili till the entire bowl of Pan Mee is burning red. He’ll eat so much that he often spends the next day in the toilet “burning his ass” from all the chill he had but he always says it’s all worth it.

I have never seen anyone eat more spicy than Ming but Ming had heard a lot about the hotness of the chicken wings here so he decided to be not so ambitious. He ordered a plate of Level 2 (for me… since I don’t like too spicy) and for the people who like spicy he ordered a plate of Level 10. Still he was gung-ho about it….. all prepared to handle Level 10 and pretty confident too.

Pierre was just as confident.

Shortly after the chicken wings came. This is how my Level 2 looked.

Now I thought that Level 2 was already pretty spicy… well maybe not at first but the more you eat the more it builds up. At the end of just a couple of wings my tongue was burning so hot that even the fried mushrooms I had later on felt like they were spicy.

I couldn’t taste anything else apart from spicy. It’s like my tongue was numb.

But yet… what I had was nothing compared to the Level 10.

BEHOLD!

Notice how much more of whatever hot sauce they put in was on it. It almost looked drenched.

Ming went ahead and started on his first wing. He took his first bite and went

“Hmmm actually it’s not so……. *pauses*…. HOLY SHIT!!!”

And he downed a glass of root beer.

Just around the same time Pierre was having his first piece too and he went

“Aiyo not so bad what…. “

Then suddenly… Pierre jerked and shouted

“FUCK!!!”

And he too gulped his drink down as if he was trying to put out a fire in his throat.

Within seconds Ming called the waiter to order more drinks.

“GIVE ME ANOTHER 3 ROOT BEER… AH FUCK IT JUST GIVE ME 7 OF THEM!!! KIN AH KIN AH!!!! (FASTER FASTER!!!)”

And within 60 seconds… this is how many cans of soft drinks were brought for just Ming, Pierre and Jiresh.

With this kind of response it makes you wonder why they don’t just give the chicken wings for free and charge more for the drinks instead.

The chili was so hot that Jiresh told us that his fingers were burning. That reminded him of something that happened to a friend of his some time ago.

He told us the story about how he was once camping with some friends when one of his friends who was just chopping some chili wanted to go pee in the bush. Without washing his hands he unzipped his pants and started to do his business.

About 30 seconds later he jumped out of the bush screaming in pain from the burning sensation on his crotch. I think he did everything short of putting ice cubes on it to ease the pain.

When we left the restaurant that night, Ming and Pierre vowed to try Level 15 the next time they came back. But just before we left Ming curiously popped a question to one of the staff at the restaurant

“Eh… how big is the difference between Level 15 and Level 30 ah? If can do Level 15 then can do Level 30 ar?”

The restaurant staff replied

“DON’T TRY AH DON’T TRY AH!!! Amitabha Amitabha…” almost like he started praying for Ming.

I guess Level 30 must be really really bad.

I really wonder how these guys did it.

Earth Hour Dinner

Posted on May 3, 2009 admin

Was at the Earth Hour Appreciation Dinner last Thursday organized by WWF.

Project 365: Day 74, 30th April 2009

They showed us how well the initiative worked in Malaysia and estimated 5-6 million people in Malaysia took part in it.

I guess many of you guys have much to be proud of 🙂

Busy Week

Posted on April 30, 2009 admin

It just dawned on me that it’s the end of the week already. This week flew by so fast for me. Had so many things I had to do.

The good news is that this week we finally managed to interview some people who I think are great and seem really passionate about working at Nuffnang. Think our long patience in finding the right people to hire has finally paid off.

Apart from the usual work stuff, I also spent much of this week preparing for a Blog Marketing and New Media Workshop that I’m supposed to conduct next week.

Project 365: Day 73, 29th April 2009

As always I look extremely boyish. Sometimes when I go give talks like this to people who have spent far many more years in the advertising industry than I have, I can’t help but feel like I should be the one in the audience listening to them talk instead of vice versa.

One thing I definitely have to learn though is how to save more money. I’m terribly bad when it comes to saving. I think I save a lower proportion of my income than most people do. I mean I don’t exactly buy any branded stuff and all that but I think I spend way too much money on food. It doesn’t help that I eat out a lot and I like eating at some great restaurants every now and then.

*sigh*

Off to Singapore tomorrow for a half work half play trip.

Have a great Labour Day Weekend everyone!

Rome!

Posted on April 29, 2009 admin

Hello Rome!

Well not actually in Rome but at the Heineken Roma Final 2009 at Metropol on Saturday night.

The front entrance had this big sign with bottles spelling out the words.

And yes that’s Desmondkiu in the picture with me talking on the phone while I was posing. As you can all see, I wasn’t important enough for him to pay proper attention to when taking a picture with.

“A Night in Rome” was an event last Saturday organized by Heineken where they had a very Italian/Roman theme to the whole thing. On the outside of what is a Mercedes Showroom on a regular day, they put up all these backdrops of Rome to make it look as if we were all there.

Adds to the fun of us bloggers to take some pictures. This is me trying to get Princess to pretend with me that we’re in Rome sight-seeing.

She couldn’t take the pretend and just started laughing.

So I gave up on her and got Jia Meei, Li Tat and his sister to pose as tourists with me.

I say we did a GOOD JOB! Agree?

Makes you almost want to go up to and try to sell us a fake Gucci handbag.

Then we quickly got bored pretending to be tourists and just started taking regular pictures

And sitting down to drink.

After enough beers to make me a little woozy we headed inside to where everyone was already waiting for the show to start.

It was PACKED!

The event started off with some opera,

then on to a fashion show with a Roman kind of theme. The models all were dressed up to look like Gladiators … well in their own right.

After the fashion show they brought this group from Australia in called Bumble Bees. There was a guy DJing and a girl who just stood behind him dancing to the beat.

At first we were wondering what the hell she was doing there apart from looking pretty but she suddenly started rapping and fuuuhh we were pleasantly surprised!

In between the performances I got a little hungry so I headed to the VIP area somewhere in the back (I never knew I was a VIP till the later end of the night), where I had a truck load of these cute little burgers.