Hey Fatso!

Not me!

Apparently I'm getting thinner. It was indeed a popular consensus.

"You look skinnier again. Your face is dull and pale, not healthy." Mom said to me over the Chinese New Year.

"Are you losing weight? Look at your face with those sunken cheeks, are you eating properly?" Grandma said to me, again over Chinese New Year when I was home.

"What happen to you? You are getting thin!" Exclaimed one of my aunts, with such concern.

As usual, I brushed these aside with a smile, then assured them that I'm doing ok, eating well and exercising regularly. Neither losing or gaining anything. Let's face it, we are never 'fat enough' for our mothers. And those 'concerns' from my grandma and aunts, they are practically the opening remarks from the relatives that we see like twice a year.

Then...

"Hey what happen to you? You are getting thinner lately." The receptionist at my gym, whom I shamelessly flirt with all the time, asked me.

And then...

"Dude, I notice you are getting slimmer, pretty obvious around the neck and shoulder area." A gym mate said to me in the changing room after one of over killer yoga session. "Even L (another gym mate) mentioned that to me." He added.

No shit!

No, I mean... SHIT! These are the people I see regularly and it bugs me a little, no, a lot, hearing these remarks from them. It certainly got me worried if I've over-trained at the gym or it was a symptom of some illness. Well, I do get tired easily lately and the energy level is low too. Am I sick?

Until...

I came across a scale last week. Gingerly I stepped on it. Taking a deep breath and my eyes shutting tight, I braced myself to look at the scale.

"What the fuck?! Are you kidding me?"

I've hardly lost an ounce. (I'm not telling you how much I weigh!)

That just proved one thing, what is popular may not be right.

Eyes lie, but the scale never.

Morning Beach

These shots were taken over the Chinese New Year holiday at the Teluk Chempedak beach in my hometown. I got there around 6 in the morning, after playing mahjong with friends throughout the night. Both my brain and my eyes were just too fried to look for any interesting composition. These turned out sort of ok. What do you think?

Lazy Man Lunch: Baked Dory Fillet

Simply lay some vegetables on a greased tin foil. I had got crushed garlics, crushed shallots, halved cherry tomatoes, sliced celery and mushrooms. Season the vegetables with pepper and Worcestershire sauce (I ran out of wine. Damn it!). Place the dory fillet atop the bed of vegetables, sprinkle some pepper, drizzle some olive oil, and squeeze in juice from half a lemon. Fold the whole thing into an envelope and slide it into a mail box. No, I mean into a preheated oven. How long to bake obviously depends on how huge the slab of fillet is. My rule of thumb is that the fish should be done when I smell the tantalizing fragrance coming from the kitchen.

Now let's eat!

Another tasty lunch the lazy man style: Prep time 10 minutes. Cook time err I did not time it, but it should be no more than 15 minutes. Clean up time 0 minutes.

Vroom Vroom...

F1 Teasers

I went to the Malaysian GP F1 qualifying session today. It was super noisy and super exciting, not to mention super fast. Hence the teasers...

More to come soon...

Tweaking from Cook with Jamie

Browsing through Cook with Jamie that I nicked from my sister, I came across Jamie's proper blokes' sausage fusilli. I tweaked it a bit and cooked it for lunch last weekend.

Browned a couple cloves of crushed garlics and shallots in heated pan with butter. Squeezed half an Italian sausage out of it's skin and into the pan for a bit of mashing and frying, letting the fat from the sausage oozing out. Those were the good stuff, full of flavors. Then added in some sliced mushrooms and halved cherry tomatoes. Seasoned with pepper, worcestershire sauce and cooking wine. Returned the cooked pasta into the pan for a quick toss. I used shell pasta since that was the only thing I had. Seeing the pan was a bit dry (as it was intended to be) as I was about to dish them out, I cracked open a can of beer and poured some in, along with a few dollops of butter to moisten the pasta. More tweaking of Jamie's recipe.

Time to eat!

Chummy with Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica

This afternoon I had lunch with Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica, the BMW Sauber F1 team drivers. Well, along with another 50 odd staff from various operating units in the company. It was one of those meet-and-greet PR events in conjunction with the coming Petronas Malaysia GP this weekend.

Initially, they were rather cold, not as friendly as I expected. While we were neither stalker freaks nor screaming fans, still, to them, we were complete strangers. So how chummy can you get with a bunch of strangers, especially you are exhausted from the Melbourne race, acclimatizing to the heat and humidity and trying your best just to stay awake from the jet-leg? So they were pretty quiet, hardly smiled even.

But be afraid not. It was lunch. The organizer certainly was playing the gracious host part very well, with a spread of scrumptious feast ready to force down their throats (and ours too). Our mouths were stuffed full that no one could talk anyway. We had the sound of chewing and the clunking of the cutlery filling up the awkward silence. But you know, food has the magical power to loosen people up. Surely, they warmed up after they got food in their stomach. They started cracking jokes and mingling with the crowd during the little quiz.

Later I was lucky enough to be one of those who got picked to pit against Heidfeld for a race at the PS2 track. I was so sucked at working at the 65 dials and buttons to control the car (old people have dexterity issue) that Kubica actually leaned over and guided me along. Needless to say I got my ass whooped big time. It was all fun anyway.

Throughout the event they were very accommodating, posing for photographs or signing autographs or just chatting with us. All in all I think they are pretty chilled guys. You know what, if they were not busy racing this weekend, I so see us hanging out watching the race together instead, chugging beers and having a laugh.

If only…

Anyway, good luck guys.

My Place is Clean!

I slaved my ass off cleaning every single room yesterday, from 10 in the morning until 5 in the evening. Once I got going I was simply unstoppable, cleaning one room after another: the living room, the kitchen, my room, storage, the yard and finally the toilet. I even skipped lunch. It was a good straight 7 hours of dusting, sweeping, mopping, wiping, scrubing and washing. Well, I did a little napping and net surfing in between, about half an hour or so, each.

Anyway, every single room in the house is now spotless. The place feels great and smells fresh. I love it. I love it a lot. I love just simply siting in the clean house, doing nothing. That was exactly what I did this morning, sitting in my immaculately clean living room, flipping magazine and sipping coffee, 2 cups!

That Moment Last Night

Last night, drifting away into la-la land, I was suddenly snapped awake, thinking of you. Tired and sleepy in the night that the air was stale and stuffy, you came to me like a breath of fresh breeze. That put a smile on my dopey face. Such a pleasant surprise.

This morning as I opened my email, there they were waiting for me 3 emails from you. There were pictures of you and there was the plan about traveling. Looking at the time stamp, I realized that you were writing me emails thinking of me as I was going to bed thinking of you. Though 13 hours apart, that moment last night, THAT moment, we were thinking of each other.

In Chinese, it's called ⼼靈相通 (xin ling xiang tong), meaning heart and soul connecting together.

Hey, what do you say about that?

The Wake

The election over the weekend left a wake of shock, despair and euphoria. Like the thunder, the people's voice was more than loud and clear. It demanded attention with such forceful tone.

As the dust settled after the pouring rain, it was funny to see how different people reacted, rather than reconciled to the new political climate. There were some behaving with such dignity, accepting defeat, more importantly responsibility and bow out gracefully. They are moving on chin up. There were some simply being juvenile, no, more like childish, pulling pranks, throwing tantrums and refusing to face the music and playing hide-and-seek. Obviously, they have a lot more of growing up to do.

And me?

Just as the country was overwhelmed by the momentous outcome and pondering on the days to come, I resolved to my own therapeutic treatment to calm myself down.

I baked. I made a batch of carrot walnut muffins.

Yummy!

Who's Your Daddy?

Even though I'll be waking up at the crack of dawn and dashing down the highway heading home on a Saturday, I'm pretty excited about tomorrow. I'm all happy and jittery because I'll be casting my ballot for the very first time tomorrow.

That's right, I'll be losing my voting virginity tomorrow.

As certain as death and taxes, voting is the only thing guaranteed in the constitution our democracy. It is simply untouchable. It's incredibly mighty. It's almost sacred. Well, it is indeed sacred. Voting empowers us to take charge of our destiny.

That's right, Malaysia is going to the polling stations tomorrow to elect their new government.

It's our privilege to vote. It's our right to vote. Its our duty to vote. So we MUST vote. I don't care who you are voting for but you MUST go out there and put the x next to whichever box you fancy. Just do it. And please, please, please don't throw your vote away but spoiling your vote. That's a cardinal sin and you'll get bad sex, no, you'll get no sex until the next election should you cast a spoilt vote. Don't you dare screwing it up. Do it right, people!

Like the song Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard: "Raise you hopeful voice you have a choice you've made it now"

This time around, we the people are calling the shot.

Now who's your daddy?