Month: August 2007

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.