Category: Silly Me

You wouldn’t believe what I did at the Malaysian Custom last Friday.

When I was young and needed to travel overseas on my own, my dad always made sure that all the new items I carried across the border would have the original packaging removed.  Each and every item.  As I grow older, I deduce that if the items are for self use, it is OK to carry them over from one country to another.  Where does the line being drawn?  I have no clue.  I am sure travellers visit places overseas and buy souvenirs for friends.  Some are pretty big ticket items (like the Swiss watches).  Who would shop overseas and declare all their goods at the Custom and get themselves taxed?

Seriously?

Last Friday morning, as Cynthia left our home and headed to the airport, she smiled at me and said, “See you in Malaysia tonight!”  I smiled back and said, “No no no!  See you in Singapore next week!”.  The truth was, I did not give Cynthia a firm yes that I would drive all the way and visit her over the weekend.  Call it a semi-surprise visit or an internal struggle yet to be sorted out.  I hadn’t even packed my bag that early Friday morning.

I knew she has to work over the weekend and I have thousand and one things I could do in Singapore.  But then … why not make someone happy and besides, I always love a little adventure.  I had no idea where and how to get to PJ Hilton.

So I packed my bag in a hurry (still needed to go to work for half a day), brought along a new brainless book, grabbed my Spanish classical guitar, and … that should be enough to keep myself entertained.

Except, I had this sudden urge to attempt to write some songs during this road trip and I have stumbled upon a nice neat toy a while back that condenses the entire home recording studio into a hand-held device!  I just had to buy that before heading to Malaysia!

Fast forward to the Malaysian Custom, one friendly officer asked me to open the car boot and he pointed at my shopping bag and asked, “What is it inside?”

“Erm … it’s a recorder,” I replied gingerly and already cursing my own stupidity.

He took it out from my shopping bag and clearly had no idea what it was.  It is definitely not something you can commonly see in all good electronic stores.  Carrying with him my brand new toy, he consulted his group of officers (must be like 6 or 7 of them gathering by the desk … very intimidating!)

“You need a permit for this,” he smiled.

In any other given days, I would have loved his friendly smile.  I said, “I don’t understand.  It is just a recorder.  More like a MP3 player!”

“I know, I know!  Well, you will need a permit in order to bring this into Malaysia.  But I shall tax you instead.  It is much better that way,” he said.

“Tax me?!  But it is for my own use!” I gently protested.

“Do you have a receipt?” he asked.

Now, how stupid I was?!  I could have said: no, but I remember it cost 10 bucks.  Instead, I passed him the receipt.  He took out a calculator, punched in some numbers, and said, “The tax is 30% and that will be RM 175.”

I was nearly in tears!  I pleaded with him that I bought it just before lunch and I planned to use it to record my guitar this evening (I didn’t dare to show him my mint condition S$1,500 guitar at the back seat that has a receipt inside … the best place to keep a receipt is with the item itself, no?).  I even tried to strike up a conversation with him on music.  To tell you the truth, he must be the most sympathetic and friendly Malaysian Custom officer I have ever met.

After much deliberation with all sort of analogies I could think of (he was very patience too!), he did not bulge and kept telling me that he was just doing his job.  Reluctantly, I took out my wallet ready to hand him RM 175.  He was taken aback and said, “Don’t you want a receipt?  You have to pay the tax over there.”  He pointed at somewhere far.

That’s it.  I wasn’t going to walk!  It would be a walk of shame!  And I would be haunted by this stupid moment of mine for the rest of my life!  I counter suggested that I should just throw away the packaging right here right now.  He was shocked slightly and smile, “Sorry Sir, I have already seen the box!”

“But it doesn’t matter!  I will rip the box apart.  And you won’t see it again!  Besides, I wouldn’t be able to sell that in Malaysia right?” I insisted.  OK, my heart would bleed because I do keep all my toys inside the original packages all the time.  But between RM 175 and heart pain, I would choose the latter.

As I attempted to take the box from his hand, he stopped me and said, “Let me ask my supervisor.”

The supervisor looked really cold and stern.  Actually he did look very scary.  I was not sure if I could muster enough courage to face him.

The officer presented my case.  the supervisor kept quiet at first and then let out one command in Malay.  He didn’t even bother to look at me!  The officer returned and asked, “What passport are you holding?”

Huh?!  Now only you ask that from me?!

“Singaporean passport!” I held my breath.

“Next time, please don’t do that again,” he said.  I was in such a relief that I even shook his hands!

Gosh, isn’t that a bit out of proportion?!  30% tax?!  For something that I actually use.  Lesson learned.  Always listen to what daddy say.  He has more grey hair than me for a reason.

OK.  Don’t panic.  It is not as though I have not celebrated Chinese New Year in Singapore before.  Like that one year I had to hunt for oranges at the very last minute after discovering that it is the tradition here to pass the oranges around.  Or that year … erm … to be honest, I don’t recall that many times I have spent the holiday in Singapore.  Last year, Cynthia and I were in Melbourne.  The year before we were in Hong Kong.  This year, since our plan A road trip to Malaysia doesn’t work out, time to execute plan B.

I pulled out a large piece of paper this morning and pondered what I needed to do next.  I wrote down: spring cleaning, red couplets (揮春) for decoration and good luck, and stocking up the refrigerator.  Since I have already done spring cleaning prior to Cynthia’s mother arrival, that is one headache off my list.  I stared at ‘red couplets’ and since Cynthia planned to visit Chinatown with her mother in the morning, I delegated this wonderful task to her.  Except she can’t read nor speak Chinese at all.

First, Cynthia sent me a picture of a rat in cartoon format via MMS and asked if I wanted it.  I repeated that I only wanted either one single character (I wrote the word 福 that means ‘luck’ to her beforehand) or pairs of 4 characters.  Then came the 2nd MMS with tons of red couplets.  Bingo!  Another headache’s down.

I was pretty relax over the last item until I started to hear from my friends at my workplace all the horror stories of last minute grocery shopping in Singapore.  No way I am going to starve myself over the CNY!  Besides, I so planned to make the best out of plan A and cook some delicious dishes for Cynthia and her mother.  I even planned to invite my sister over for the first time ever brother-and-sister bonding over CNY here in Singapore!  This is big, so big that I must have sounded pretty stressed up until my friend ST kept reminding me to relax and don’t get stress.

This afternoon, on the way to the-mother-of-all-NTUC at AMK Hub, I have literally converted my car into a war-room not unlike what the US President does inside Air Force One.  I was shouting out the name of the dishes into the air and Cynthia captured a list of what we needed to buy on a piece of paper.  It has to be a decisive strike.  We have to know our exact targets and we have to … like Bush once said … smoke them out!

AMK Hub was packed with last minute shoppers.  As I saw trolleys full of NTUC bags leaving the hypermarket, I couldn’t help but to think-out-loud: there goes my chicken! There goes my vegetable!  And there goes my …  I was thinking out so loud that Cynthia has to calm me down.  My breathing went deeper, my heart beat faster, my head went lighter, and into the war zone we entered.

Inside NTUC was a total chaos.  Shoppers were grabbing everything they saw.  I went to the meat rack and there were only a few packets left.  When the meat trolley came out, I couldn’t bother to look at the list that was composed back at Air Force One.  I didn’t even care what sort of meat it was.  It was either pork belly or pork chop or nothing.  In any given day, I would not consider either.  Today, we fought for survival.  I went to the poultry section and must have grabbed the last few chickens left in Singapore.  Cynthia asked why I bought two chickens.  I replied, “Don’t think, just grab.”  I was not the only one who was going crazy, everyone was going crazy.  The last time I was having this euphoric feeling was inside the factory outlets in US.  I was going crazy with my friend grabbing all the clothes we could see.  I saw live fish inside the tank and I asked for one.  The reply was, “Sorry Sir, this section is closed and we are unable to have the fish cleaned and gutted for you.  Do you still want one?”  I was stoned for a while with the scenes of me killing a fish running through my head again and again and I told Cynthia, “I know I can do it!”.  She reminded me that a live fish was not in our list.

I have bought a trolley full of stuffs that were not in our list!  Oh well, Cynthia was right.  We could do without a fish.

How could Cynthia be so calm?!

I appreciate the fact that talented people create online surveys to let people with a curious mind to analysis themselves … for free. I really do. But for God sake, if you are going to tell a dude like me that I am with a “very high femininity”, please follow up with a free counseling as well. I was devastated for days, tongue-tied, and shocked. Short of wanting to kill myself and press that “restart” button.

One day, I visited my buddy Choong Yong‘s website and was attracted to his personal DNA. I moused over his DNA and am agreeable to the findings. Yep, that is the Choong Yong I know. I did the test myself and after 11 pages of survey – very comprehensive and innovated I must say – I was devastated with the results.

Yes, I love to shop, love to cook, love to collect discount cards from Art Friend, Kinokuniya, Jumbo Seafood – just to name a few – and I am aware of which of my credit card gives me dining privilege at which food outlet. I do enjoy housework as well as ironing my own business shirts. I am lousy in road direction and I relate better with my female friends. And I love to watch romantic dramas on TV and on the big screen. BUT! Let me assure you. I am a MAN OF STEEL from inside to outside, from top to you-know-where.

Turns out that beside being high on femininity with a score of 88 (“very” to be precise), I score very high in the following areas (feel free to mouse over my personal DNA above): empathy (94), attention to style (94), openness (92), aesthetic (92), and confidence (82). That certainly describes who I am. I love to create and I love to encourage and inspire people around me (hence “encouraging creator”), that too I think is about right.

But still … very high femininity? Meh … I need to see a shrink to fix this.

PS. Click onto the link at my personal DNA to do the survey yourself.

Let me tell you one thing. The most powerful form of nagging is not how persistence it is but how subtle it is. You-know-who never explicitly nags me. She subtly nags me. The thing is, once someone nags at me, the guilty feeling of what-I-should-have-done is somewhat lessen. Nagging itself is a form of punishment. Having being punished, it makes the guilty acts somewhat justified. Make sense?

But, you-know-who never nags explicitly. So when I see her unhappy about some bad habits of mine, I feel darn guilty. However, I just cannot stop buying music albums. No way! My collection has split over from the CD rack in the living room to the common bedroom, to the storeroom, and then piles and piles of albums appear in the living room. I just cannot help it. You-know-who never nags about it but deep inside, I know she is stressed about it.

So, I have set my heart to sort this out once and for all – to end this years of guilt.

Day 1 – 2pm

Digitization of my album collection was the way to go. I was convinced. Last night I stayed till 2am in the morning to make way for a 240GB of music (formatting hard-disk). Day 1 at 2pm, I took out all the albums I have. I did a count. More than 700. That excludes the ones in storeroom. My first action was to focus on the main artists.

Day – 6pm

Took me a long time just to distill out the main artists whom I enjoy listening to. However, there were still a lot more to sort out. This approach was not working. Why not keep it simple and sort all the albums alphabetically? Those CDs that I will listen to in this 12 months’ time shall be displayed in the living room. The rest should be stored at the common bedroom alphabetically for easy access. If I wish to digitize any album for my non-existing iPod, I shall do so only in later days.

Day 2 – 1.30am

I travelled to Ikea and bought some paper boxes to store CDs. Once back, I started to sort out the albums alphabetically. I allocated each floor tile (in some cases, extend to 2 tiles) for each alphabet. I even labelled some of the tiles. Imagine … 700 squats and as the living room was covered with CD. I hardly have space to walk. I could not even access to my computer for more than 24 hours! Next, was the strenuous task of distributing each album into the appropriate tiles on the floor.

Guess which are the most popular alphabets? C & D for my CD collection is correct. P, M, and S is also correct!

I couldn’t continue. I must sleep. And I woke up with aches all over my body.

Day 2 – 11pm

After returned home, I continued to sort out what shall be displayed in the living room and what should be kept inside a box for easy access. All arranged in alphabetically order. Gosh!

All is done. I am happy. Let’s see if Cynthia will see the difference in the outlook of our living room when she is back this weekend. Provided if she hasn’t got the chance to read this blog. It would be a good surprise.

Edit: Those boxes of CDs will temporary disappear into the common bedroom … till I figure out what to do with them!

You know how couples occasionally plan their evening sex first thing in the morning, romance with the idea the entire day, and then have a wonderful time in the evening waking up the neighbors throughout the night? The entire day today, I kept thinking of my home cooked dinner. You see, cooking at home as a professional worker requires lots of planning and coordination. For one, I need to defrost the meat one day in advance by taking it out from the freezer and transfer it to the refrigerator the night before. Ever since I have started working, I hardly have the opportunity to cook at home.

I must be joking about cooking at home right? Ya, I get that a lot. Actually, cooking at home does not take too much time – especially the Cantonese dishes. And since you are my number one friend, I am going to show you how. This not-too-naked-chef has 18 years of cooking experience and my dishes have won over many hearts. No joke joke. People say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I would say the way to a girl’s panties heart is good home cooked food.

To save time, first and foremost important is to switch on the rice cooker. It may sound obviously duh but hear me out. The sooner you switch on the rice cooker, the sooner you can have your dinner. Between the moment you switch on the rice cooker and the moment food enters your stomach is … depends on the power of your rice cooker … it is 30 mins cooking time and 10 mins of cool off time with my antique cooker (according to my mother, that 10 mins does magic to the end result). That’s right, only 40 mins or less. If you are quick in preparing the food, you may even have half an hour doing other things outside your kitchen.

What it means is that the moment you step onto your home, forget about taking off your contact lens, forget about changing into your PJ, forget about stripping naked, go straight into the kitchen and cook the rice.

I love a brown and white rice mix and tonight, I was going to have steam egg with minced pork and lettuce with oyster sauce. Nothing fancy. Just simple home cooked food.

After switched on the rice cooker, I opened the refrigerator and took out the ingredients …

AARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!

The lettuce was rotten! Goodness gracious me! What the … It was just … one week or so ago! Crap!

People around me know that I have this To-Blame List and whenever I take it out, they will duck their heads and run for cover. I took out this To-Blame List and since Cynthia was not around …

1. Blame NTUC for selling lettuce that rots.

Fine. I would have to do without lettuce. To cook steam egg and minced pork is pretty easy. Marinate the meat with soy sauce, sugar, salt, corn flour, and for me, I like to add Chinese wine and sesame seed oil. Standard procedure for all kinds of meat except beef as salt will make the meat chewy. If you like dry scallops, soak a few in water beforehand (if time is a luxury you don’t have, just boil it), break them into small pieces and mix with the pork. Since egg cooks a lot faster than meat, stir fry the meat first till cooked and place it onto a dish.

Oh, for the Muslim readers, feel free to replace pork with beef.

As for the eggs, depending on how much meat you wish to eat. For 200 grams of meat, I usually put in three eggs. Smash them up, add some salt, and add enough water to increase the volume by say 20%. Pour the egg mixture onto the cooked meat.

Then … just steam the dish over boiling water for 10 minutes.

And right after I cooked the meat …

AARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!

… the gas ran out! Not to worry, I have a backup cylinder … and …

AARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!

That one ran out too! Com’on! This is not happening! What was I gonna do with cooked meat and raw egg mixture? I took out my To-Blame List and started to think of my mother who was in my place two months ago cooking heavily each day, started to think of Cynthia … and …

2. Blame Shell for not filling up my gas cylinder just a tiny weeny more.

Extreme situation calls for extreme measure. Think, think, I can do it.

Eventually I cooked the dish inside my oven. Took 10 mins to warm the oven up to 140 degree. After 20 mins of baking, the egg mixture was only half cooked. I removed the aluminium foil that covered the dish and up the temperature to 180 degree. After an additional 10 mins of cooking time, the end result was just like the picture shown at the beginning of this blog.

I did not know what to expect. Actually, the end result did look better than the steam version. Except that the surface was not soft and moist and it was tedious to wash the burn marks off. It did taste somewhat the same. Oh well …

Question in my head throughout the meal was … how come it took so much longer to cook the dish inside the oven? We all know that water does not go beyond 100 degree but yet, it is so much more efficient to steam than bake. Anyway, the power consumption of my oven is 1.15kWh. That works out to … 1.15 (consumption per hour) x 2/3 (cooking time) x S$0.2052 = S$0.16.

Hmmm … I thought it would cost me a bomb to cook with my oven.

Bananas rip fast. One moment they are all green and astringent. Another moment they are all yellow and starchy full of sweetness. One night I looked at my remaining five bananas in distress. Any moment, any of those bananas would fall off from where I hang them. They were getting overripe.

And then I remembered the blender that I bought in year 2004 and I have yet to open the box and use it. (Why did I buy it in the first place?!)

So I screamed from the kitchen …

Me: Cyn, could you please look up the Internet on how to make banana milkshake?
Cyn: Banana milkshake?!
Me: Yes please. I want to make banana milkshake.

After a minute or two …

Me (screamed from kitchen through closed door): What have you found?
Cyn: 1 cup of milk with 1 banana.
Me: Come in and let me show you something.

After looking at my blender …

Cyn: You want to make milkshake?
Me: As a matter of fact, yes.
Cyn: In the middle of the night?
Me: But these bananas won’t survive till next morning!
Cyn: But it is now midnight!
Me: I know! But look at these bananas!

Cynthia gave up. I threw in 2 bananas into the blender with 2 cups of skim milk and a teaspoon of sugar and …

Cyn: How is it?
Me: This is not right. I can only taste milk.
Cyn: Oh well …
Me: Let me throw in more banana and add more sugar.

In the end, I blended 5 bananas with 2 cups of milk. I think I have added too much sugar. Of course I could not finish all the banana milkshake on the same night and I stuffed them into the frig. Somehow it didn’t look the same the next day (with a layer of grayness on the top). I think I have yet to master the art of making banana milkshake. Anyone care to share some best practices with me? I reckon I shall try to blend the banana and full cream milk with ice-cream and to add nutmeg and cinnamon for flavor.

Just one day before we departed for Kota Kinabalu, I took Cynthia to AMK Hub to show her my love-at-first-sight Nike ACG (All Condition Gear) sport shoes. There is a lady version as well. Need not to say, upon seeing those beauties, Cynthia has chucked her idea of getting a pair of cheap sport shoes away. Those sport shoes were on 10% discount and through my charm and persistence in uncovering more discounts, the sale assistance gave in. You see, discounts are everywhere if you care to uncover them. If you recall my blog on my car insurance renewal, a 10% discount on your premium is just an email away. My friends find it hard to believe that we can bargain in the shops inside shopping malls. The truth is, it is as simple as the sale assistance overwriting the amounts of the goods at the till. I bought 7 items and he overwrote the price of each item to give me further discount. I gave the guy a hug before leaving the nicely renovated shop at AMK Hub.

After the trip, our beloved Nike ACG sport shoes were covered in mud. With an impressive determination, Cynthia said she would take care of those shoes in her authentic-sport-shoes-cleansing methodology dated back from her younger days in Bandung, Indonesia. Who am I to inject new ideas? After all, if I was to do it, I would have thrown those shoes into the washing machine and the dryer. Nothing beats hand wash (especially when it is not my hands!).

Armed with shampoo, toothbrush, and a wide bucket full of hot water, Cynthia has magically transformed our sport shoes into something sparkling clean, something that looked as though they were fresh from the store, something that looked totally brand new … except I have never seen sport shoes that felt so wet and smelled so full of shampoo in my life before. I tried drip-drying them outside my home but somehow for the lack of direct sunlight, our shoes were not drying as fast as I wished them to be.

So I took out my hair-dryer this morning and attempted to blow dry them. I had no clue why my right shoe smelled of shampoo while my left one has some musky smell (I actually have some idea but since I did not lift a single finger in cleaning those shoes, I better keep quiet). That was no good. What to do, what to do?

This morning I woke up with some nagging minor pain on my right knee. Concern over the slow recovery, I was thinking of ways to exercise my joint. People say that swimming is the best exercise for joints. I looked out of the window and saw a bright sunny day. I thought of my injured knee and our Nike ACG sport shoes. I connect all three together and decided to go for a swim while sunning our sport shoes! Brilliant idea it was!

I dashed down to my swimming pool with such an urgency not wanting to miss even a single moment of sunlight. I set down my towel on the bench by the pool, took out the shoes from a plastic bag, and lined them up nicely underneath a hot sun. Feeling triumphant, I dipped myself into the pool and started my laps. First lap, bright and sunny. Second lap, the clouds above me thickened. Third lap, the wind was getting stronger. Fourth lap, there was hardly any sun. Fifth lap, the sky was going to pour at any minute. I kept on swimming doing my laps hoping that the clouds above me would clear soon. Halfway before I could complete my last lap, it was raining cats and dogs. I swam as fast as I could, got out of the water, and ran around the pool trying to save my shoes but it was a little bit too late. I reckon they were wetter than before I attempted to sun them.

Then, the lyrics Alanis Morissette’s “Irony” rang in my head.

PS. Time now is 4pm and the sky looks clear. Shall I …