KRI LEARNS TO BLOG!

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Merdeka! Merdeka! Merdeka!

Happy Independence Day everyone and enjoy the long weekend!

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Me? I just realised that I am older than the nation. Sigh!

Friday, August 19, 2005

Misadventures With a Kitchen Appliance

They say machines and women don't mix. I just found out they sometimes don't mix with men either. Especially kitchen appliances; cheap juice extractors in particular.

I just bought a Pensonic juice extractor for less than 100 ringgit because I thought it's time to wean myself off coffee and switch to something healthier. It was doing funny things to my kidneys or bladder or both. So, with a juice extractor in the office I can just fix myself a healthy glass of fruit juice at the press of a button. Or so I thought.

After unpacking the gadget and poring over the manual, I was ready for my first do-it-yourself life-preserving fruit juice. I hopped over to the fruit stalls across the street and selected a few ripe succulent Siamese mangoes. The likes of Mat Bahadon and Procek think anything Siamese, except the cat, is succulent. . Well, anyway, here come healthier juice-drinking days fo me; goodbye mamak foodstalls serving sugar-spiked watered down juices!

Yes! Notice how you get a particular high whenever you gain control over certain aspects of your life? This was one of them. I was floating in that same kind of euphoria as I peeled the mangoes, cut them up into small pieces and threw them into the machine. One jab at the button and I waited in anticipation of my first stream of health giving Siamese mango juice. But, no juice.

I stuffed in some more mango flesh into the machine and still, no juice. Maybe a little water would help it along. No wonder those mamak guys added the water, I thought they were cheating us. But, after about half a bottle of mineral water, still no juice. All I get in the whirring machine was a mass of mango puree, too thick to flow out through the small hole. And by the time I realised that disaster was about to strike, it was too late!

The gooey stuff was beginning to seep through and flowing down the sides of the machine when I detected a burning smell. I quickly switched off the machine, opened it up and poured everything out into any container I could find. I got gobs and gobs of the yellow stuff all over my table and floor. Phew! I managed to save the new gadget but spent the rest of the evening cleaning up everything.

When you're on a good thing, you cannot just give it up. You've to persevere, right? But I wasn't ready to take the easy route by sticking with apples, carrots and starfruits. No pain, no gain. So the next day I bought some mangoesteens. I reckoned I was going to get lots of juice out of them because they were, well, juicy and not as pulpy as the mangoes.

And yes, I watched with a sense of achievement as the thick pinkish mangoesteen juice began to ooze out of the tap. I was fun to see how the machine scraped the stones clean and spat them out all over the floor. After about a quarter glass, it stopped flowing. No problem, just add some water. Still no flow and... Oh no! Not again!

Later while cleaning the parts, I realized that the filter had been clogged up by the skin of the fruit stones. It was the same problem on the previous day too, but I didn't see it because the fibre and the flesh of the mangoes were of the same colour. But the manual didn't say anything about that. But now I know and I'm passing down this wisdom: Juicers and the mango don't tango.

I'll stick with apples, oranges, carrots and starfruits fron now on. However, handling sticky goo two days in a row didn't do any good on the ego. So, I went down to Kak Timah's and ordered coffee. The kidneys and the bladder will just have to bear with me in the meantime.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Dear Modbloggers

Dear Modbloggers, all of you out there: I like your mod-entries. I blog-hopped your mod-blogs quite frequently and I enjoyed following your mod-links to read what your mod-friends post on their mod-blogs as well. Sometimes, the entries were so interesting that I wanted to leave a mod-comment or two. But that's where the whole trouble is:

Just how do I leave a comment on your modblogs?
And why did the system keep asking me to use another name?

If you know how, please tell me, even if you are not a modblogger.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Mobile Rubber

I was at the shopping mall yesterday with my daughter. While waiting for her to finish her shopping, I went to a booth selling mobile phones to get a reload card. The salesgirl was a sweet young thing but had quite an attitude about her. They had this ad saying "Nokia 3220 Rubber, RM15.00 Only" stuck on one of the booth walls. Our conversation (in Malay) went something like this:

Me: Do you have a RM10 reload card for 019?
SYT: Yes!
Me: What's this Nokia Rubber thing?
SYT: Rubber, you know, rubber. (sounding very impatient)
Me: Oh, rubber.
SYT: It's the thing you put around it. (sounding even more impatient)
Me: Ah, I see. so, it's a new thing, and they call it "Rubber"?
SYT: Right. The reload card will be RM10.00.

I walked away from the booth, shaking my head in disbelief. I am sure her employer must be very proud of her.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Peeing in Your Pants

Someone once said, "Doing a good deed is like peeing in your black pants." I agree because, like he explained it, "... it gives you a warm feeling but nobody notices."

One really has to start thinking about it, especially when you are fifty and counting, like me. No, I'm not talking about doing more good deeds. It's about peeing in your pants. I hope I don't have to wet my pants to have a warm feeling about anything.

Here's to growing old gracefully. More good deeds of course but no wet pants, no mess, please. Amen.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

The Lingerie Shop Next Door

That was hardcore stuff, the previous post. Now for a softcore entry. The people next door are selling ladies' undergarments -- the kind that squeezes you into shape again. The problem is you need to keep them on all the time. They are doing brisk business judging by the number of ladies passing by my door every day.

However, before you guys think that I am having a lot of fun here, I must tell you that it is not a pretty sight. Those ladies who patronise the shop next door DO really need those body-shaping contraptions. Sigh!

I don't look up anymore whenever I hear footsteps. I do need to get some work done now. Yes, right after I get my caffeine fix at coffee shop below. And while I am at it, might as well watch the world go by too.