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 …