1st Birthday Gift

I received my first birthday gift when I came to school this morning.
A colourful gift left on my table.

On it was written," Mark, Happy Birthday! Try to stay young, at heart, if age doesn't allow it! Jeff."

Ha! Ha!

Jeff is such a man of humour.

深思

你活在世上的意义是什么？

Birthday Cake

It has come to the part of the year whereby I have to choose my birthday cake.

Siew Boon passed me a little professionally done catalog from Nectarie, a shop which specialise in gourmet cakes. I have to choose a cake for my birthday celebration.

I have shortlisted three:

1. Passion Green Tea
Green tea mousse with citrus passion fruits

2. Matcha Sweet Potato
Light green tea mousse with Japanese sweet potato

3. Dark Chocolate Opera
Dark Chocolate layered with coffee cream, expresso and almond sponge

Normally, I don't like my cake to be too sweet and if possible something without cream.

Dark chocolate Opera will seems to fit the bill but it is something we could get quite commonly.

Option 2 seems interesting. I have never eaten a sweet potato cake, have you?

Option 1 on the other hand somehow create a urge in me to taste it. I could feel the green tea taste and the sourish citrus passion fruit . I am salivating now.

So, my final option will be ... Passion Green Tea.

IC

I visited my dad's place last Chinese New Year, and took the opportunity to clean up my study table. Lo and behold, I found my old IC. For those who are born after the cassette era, you probably didn't know that the old IC looks like that:
And yes, that was me like more than twenty years ago. You probably will notice that thick luscious hair which apparently has become what is now a bush of thin, dry greying mane.

This photo on my new IC also looks horrid. I believe I must have perm my hair then. Yes, for those who didn't know, there was a time when perming hair is such an in thing for guy.

The other day, my office clerical staff showed me his photos when he was at his prime. Man! he looked young, handsome and muscular. This can't be said about me, for me, I just look so "moronic". Perhaps, the consolation now is that as I mature, I look not so freakish like I was before. Some people just turn into a swan very late in their life, and mine has yet to come.

The mind game

I went to attend a course on capitalising our brian by the Mind Map Guru Tony Buzan himself today.

I have been exposed to mind mapping before but it was never a tool that I swear by. That perhaps explain why my grade has never been great enough for those who donned Prada suit in the offices at the top level of some skyscrapers along shenton way to throw me a scholarship.


Lately, other than my eyesight that is deteriorating, my memory power is also disintegrating to that of a table every passing minutes.

So this course by Tony Buzan comes in handy to salvage whatever that is left in my brian that still qualify me as a normal human specie.

One takeaway today for me is that to remember things, rote learning will not take you anywhere. Rather, we should be relying on association and imagination. By creating images as vivid as possible in your head based on the subject matter will help you to remember it if you recall the images at least 5 times. This will help to translate your short term memory into long term memory.

In order that you don't fall into the same category as me whom is slowly approaching an IQ equivalent to that of a four legged wooden table, when you cross your big 40, excercise both your right and left brain so that it has synergistic effect in its functioning. By excercising, i mean doing things that will trigger the function of your right brain like music, arts, etc and excercise your left brain by performing tasks that requires logical thinking, numbers, words etc.

One good news, according to Tony Buzan at least, that we can improve our memory contrary to the belief that as we get older, our memory quotient is inverse related to our age.

Departed Fried Chicken

When mention about the Japanese movie, " Departure ", majority of your friends would have watched it and singing praises to it.

I was reading a column in today's Sunday Times and the journalist was writing about the sudden craze for Fried Chicken after watching the movie.

I had the same impulse too, when I walked out of the cinema. Other than all the dead corpses, the other thing that I could vividly remember is the dead chickens - fried to crispy golden brown. Oh ... the juicy tender fried chickens that were devoured in the movie were sending influencing message," EAT ME! " into my cranium.

The movie glamorized eating the humble fried chicken alike eating gourmet food from heaven. One of the character in Departures said, " it's so good, I hate myself! "

I beg I could be given the opportunity to hate myself.

Joyces' mother came close to making heavenly gourmet grilled chicken wings. If she pays attention to presentation, the dish could be served to the president.
Her grilled chicken wings are so good that I named it "World Best Chicken Wings". I could not stop eating once I start and would go back for more.

I never hated myself in fact I consider myself blessed to be able to savour such exquisite home cook dish. I love myself and more, the chef who cook up such a heavenly dish!

Rumble Wii

You know, I was like a little child waiting for the arrival of his present.

When the delivery finally arrive with my new Wii game,

I was elated and like a child, I stripped off the plastic cover with a glee on my face.

Then slot it into my Wii console and I was then immerse in the boxing game.

I bought the game to get some exercise, but then, it really doesn't require me to box like the reality spot. I did not sweat like I was hoping to be. As I am now in my desperate effort to shed 4 Kg by June, I was really wishing that I could have fun with my Wii game and yet burn some excess fats that has culminated around my waist since end last year.

The cellulite has stubbornly homed around my mid section and post another problem for me. Believe it a not, I have problem putting on my pants. Those pants which used to be so loose before are giving me a challenge every morning. I have to force bucker the pants and a large layer of my waist then overflows over. It's disgusting! I can't stand the sight of myself in the mirror.

While I am now typing on my laptop, I feel a little strain on my upper arm. Hmm! I guess all the punching and looping last night must have over exerted my arms. Now, it really set me thinking whether it's a cardio workout.

Man! maybe tonite I try more jumping and hopping like a pro boxer does.

Confession of an online idiot shopper

Uniqlo has opened its first flagship store at Tampines One.

Come July, two more mega shopping malls will be opening its door to the economy tsunami immuned shoppers.

Recently, I caught the movie " Confession of a Shopaholics" and man! she reminded me of how Derrick would shop.

Derrick would walked into a store and convinced himself that he needed 3 pairs of shoes for his pair of legs, and that's to add to his collection of more than 15 pairs at home. I mean, why does he need so many pairs of shoes when he has only a pair of legs. Or is he schizophrenic and thinks he is a centipede sometimes?

Have you ever wonder why so many malls are still rooting up when in this era, we have an influx of online shopping where things are cheaper I guess.

Last Sunday, I must confessed that it was my first time shopping online. I have paid my roadtax and online banking on the net in the past, but that's about all when comes to money transactions. It never goes beyond such mundane chore as paying my bills. Call me an internet novice, but when comes to buying things, I would want to touch it, feel it, look at it at different angles and sometimes, smell it. Like when I am purchasing leather products or durians, both, I would bring it close to my nose and give it a good sniff just to ensure that I am paying good money for good stuff.

I was introduced to this game.com by the newspapers and went up to browse through the Wii games put on sale online. Such item doesn't require me to feel its texture, or to examined it from more than one angle. It's basically whether you like the game and that you could roughly have an idea by reading the synopsis. And as a careful shopper, I still checked out the price at a store in Parkway Parade and convinced myself that it was cheaper for me to buy online.

Lucky for me, the purchase procedure was simple and I data entried my personal info and then posted an order to purchase a boxing game. One day later, a girl called me to confirmed my order and arrange for a delivery time. It's simple!

with such convenience, still I would prefer to shop most of my items at one of those posh shopping malls where I could feel the product or sink my teeth on the texture to test its durability.

Fat Zone

Today, I dropped by my office lounge and was surprise that the committee had revamped the place. Looks like a living room complete with TV and sound system.

As I was there, my eyes caught notice of the equipment that measures the blood pressure and fats in the body. With the help of a ever helpful colleague, I manage to get the reading for both my blood pressure and my body fat.

I remember just a couple of years back, my body fat % was about 20%. To my horror, the numeric figures that flashed on the equippment nearly gave me an heart attack. My fat content had risen to 25.3% which put me just outside the obese category for my age group.

Man! this is definitely the siren for immediate action.
I am seriously going running tonite!!!

Going downhill

When I turned 40, Lee Shan gave me a sign which says," Nowadays, the only exercise I got is pushing the 40s."

Somehow, it's true cos I hardly excercise nowadays.
just don't have the kick to do it.

However, I went for a swim today, indeed an achievement.
Hope I could keep up the momentum, if not I'm going to add more flab around my mid section.

Sigh! At my age, losing 4 kg is so darn difficult.

And, realise my long-sightedness is getting worse.

Am I becoming an "Ah Chek"?

Re-birthday Dinner

Last night, we scheduled another dinner for Joyce to make up for the last one.
We still have Thai food, but this time round the food taste good.

We went to Thai Accent at Vivo.
The food taste quite authentic Thai food, but after the dinner, we were all very thirsty.
That was probably an indication that there is too much MSG.

So to quench our thirst, we proceeded to Rochor Tau Huey again for the Tau Huey Jui and You Cha Quey.
I still like the Tau Huey Jui, not too sweet and smooth soya bean taste, not too strong.
However, the You Cha Quey was not hot enough so was not as good as the previous time.

Still, I ate so much and really have over eaten. There goes my plan to slim down 4 kg by June.