And now we return to your regularly scheduled blathering

Hello girls! It's been a while. I was too lazy to post anything, which is weird considering lots of fun stuff happened between December 8, 2007 and now. Truth be told, though, going home to Manila is always a surefire way to trigger my overwhelmingly powerful lethargy gland, and that last one in December probably shoved me way over the edge.

So there was that super awesome trip to Manila in December, when I got to meet my friends again and eat one or two restos out of business. Then I came home to find two articles for Zero Degrees, one for Review Asia, and two more business and economics stories (WAIT WHAT) for my paper waiting to bite my ass. Then I decided to be lazy and be late for the two Zero articles, only to find out that my editor was flying in for Chinese New Year with her husband.

I minced and quaked in preparation for a major tongue lashing, but we somehow ended up just watching Britney specials on E! and gossiping like schoolgirls. Fast forward to Feb, when I went to KL to cover the Jay Chou concert and met up with the three or four fab people I know who live there. Here's a photo showing how hot this boy is. I love him, feathers, imperial armour and all.

So yeah, nothing much, really. But I know you bitches come here to read about me whine, moan and occasionally rave about the dumbest things, so let me share a fabulous story. Last week, at the office, my stomach decided that it absolutely needed to be filled, preferably with a Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal, with large fries and a Coke. So I order one, with extra large fries for our lovely receptionist.

Fast forward to two hours later and I'm seriously on the verge of eating my coworkers instead when I get a call from reception telling me that McDonald's has finally arrived. So I stalk outside ready to give the delivery boy the hiding of a lifetime when I notice that he's carrying two Cokes.

That, and the bag filled with food is unusually stuffed. I ask him, why are there two burgers and four large fries? And he's all, "Oh, man, they doubled your order by mistake. It's okay, just take them."

Now, I am not the type of person to turn down divine gifts sent by the Compassionate and All-knowing Burger God. I give delivery guy a hefty tip, which is apparently unusual down here, since nobody tips, and if you try, they'll turn you down blushing.

I do not care, this man completely earned his ultra-rare reporter-sized tip. Anyone who fills my heart with the warmth and blessed cholesterol of a thousand french fries deserves nothing less.

So that's my story. The moral? Ronald 5:1: "Don't order a Double Cheeseburger from McDonald's, because if Burger God loves you enough, he'll send you two Quarter Pounders instead." Live it, love it, learn it.

Single White Nose Hair

Ohmygod, I just ate my body weight in junk food. The nutritionists totally had it wrong. A well-balanced diet consists of the Four C's: corn chips, cake, Cornetto ice cream cones, which are all made of, you guessed it, carbs.

That's exactly what I had for lunch/dinner. Linner? Dunch? I don't know. I do know that I missed out on three very important C's: cheese, Diet Coke and children. But hey, it's only like 7pm, there are so many hours left in the day to compensate.

This is the first post I've made so far that doesn't have a picture in it at all, and that's because I am about to discuss something mildly gross and very upsetting, at least on a personal level. I can deal with finding 20+ white hairs in my scalp, but when I find one growing in my nose, then it's really game over.

And it's like the first hair there is, which makes it very visible and very embarrassing. I trimmed it regularly and it would still grow too fast for my piddling maintenance skills, peeking out of my schnozz like an errant nose goblin.

Last night, I solved this potentially life-ruining problem by plucking the little bastard out. It did not hurt as much as I thought it would, but there were plenty of tears and much gnashing of teeth.

Aren't you glad you decided to drop by my blog today? God, there's so much work to be done, but somehow complaining about it feels so much better than actually doing it.

Canned Conundrum

After a long, hard, 3-hour work day, I like to pop by my friendly neighbourhood convenience store to pick up my take-home essentials: Nescafé Ice Coffee (sic) Lattes, Dunhill Menthols, and about 47 cans of Coke Light. And it pisses me off so much that the rest of KK seems to have the same idea.

My only stop today had run out of all three delicious products. What the hell, man. I understand running out of a particular type of cigarette, but the drinks? So wrong. There hasn't been a longer canned Latte drought in recent times. I mean, I haven't had one in three weeks. But what really bugs me are the missing Coke Lights.

I need my aspartame and caffeine fix, people. I've learned to hate the taste of regular Coke since I switched to diet years ago. The only other person I know who drinks Coke Light as much as I do is Stella, and I always, always make angry calls to her when our local 7-11 runs out, because I know it's her who buys them out.

And when one store runs out, chances are, the rest of KK is out as well. Why haven't these places realised that there's a market for diet drinks? On the bright side, she also knows several alternate sources, so she's a great person to keep on speed dial. ALSO SHE IS THE BEST HAIRSTYLIST IN TOWN. Just thought I'd point that out. Stop going to shitty salons, people, Cuts Gallery is the place to be.



So I had to make do with Mocha Ice Coffees (again, sic) and Vanilla Cokes today. How gross. The excess sugar leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I don't get the same feeling of simultaneously staving off excess calories and dying a slow and unnatural death that I get when I chug Coke Lights.

Leave my Coke Lights alone, you filthy bitches! I swear to God, I will hunt you down and hurt you, a lot. There will be plenty of neck-snapping and angry gnashing of teeth. I will string you up by your giblets, shoot your dog, eat your children, etc. etc.

Just one more thing. I noticed in the UK that they had a new type of Coca-Cola: Coke Zero. What the hell is it, you ask? Well, you know how Coke Light/Diet Coke has less than a calorie? Coke Zero has none. Yeah, because five extra calories a day are really going to make a difference.

I bought both a Diet Coke and a Coke Zero to compare the taste. The verdict: Coke Zero tastes even worse. It's like a pharmacy in a can, except you don't get a bonus narcotic high. So disappointing.

Pizza is a Four-Letter Word

I'm not exactly what one would call a gourmet. I’d devour a Wagyu steak topped with foie gras as readily as I would a Double Cheeseburger Value Meal (go large, with Apple Pie, please). But I do have taste, and I believe in getting what I paid for. I don’t mind paying a lot for something if it’s delicious and filling. My friends know that my one extravagance is food. The currency in my clique is food.

We pay for each other’s meals all the time, and it’s because we love seeing our nearest and dearest buds bathing in an orgiastic frenzy of calories and cholesterol. Kind of like that time Pat, Bea and I ordered about 75% of the menu at a Teriyaki Boy… with an extra order of salmon sashimi for dessert, thanks… and the waiter asked, “Will it be just the, uh, three of you, ma’am?” Yes. Stop flapping your mouth and get our orders to the kitchen. We are the Extreme Eaters/Fighting Contenders, and we will eat you out of business.

You can imagine how upset I get when I order something and it turns out to be crap. Like this filth pictured here. I was in a hurry to get home and beat rush hour yesterday, because watching Gossip Girl is so much more important than staying at work, so I dropped by my favourite low-quality but inexpensive sushi outlet, only to find that they were closed. With no other Japanese fast food resto in sight, I decided to take my chances with one of those “cafés” in Tanjung Aru.

This, my friends, is where I draw the line. RM16.90 for this… pizza. I was told it was a Hawaiian. O ya, rly? Where are the pineapples, I ask you? Where is the chicken? And why in the name of all that is holy does my Hawaiian faker pizza have cashew nuts on it? Also, this has got to be the tiniest medium pizza I have ever seen. It’s like the pizza’s making an effort to stretch all the way to the sides, except it’s so ashamed to exist that it just lost all motivation.

I’ve taken the liberty of photographing this aberration next to my laptop for the sake of size comparison. I might as well have eaten my laptop for lunch, really. At least it would’ve been more glamorous. “What’d you have for lunch today?” “AN APPLE PRODUCT, ‘COS YOU KNOW, I’M SO RICH.”

And to think that this place wanted a review from me. Hell no. Yet again, it’d be a case of devolving food quality and service standards. Happens every time. They pretty up the place and make sure that my food is flawless so I write something fab, and the moment I publish, everything goes to shit and I get like ten million phone calls from my readers screaming about my horrible recommendations.

Which is why I’ve taken to a little bit of espionage. It’s nice that nobody reads my column, since very few people recognise me from my photo. So I sneak into new restaurants and try out their food, just as a regular customer, all the while scoping out the specials and the service (that’s a whole can of worms that we’ll discuss in a different entry). Sometimes I go in disguise. I wish I were kidding.

Anyway, inevitably, within a few days to a week of launching, I’ll catch wind of these places wanting a review. Either they call me directly or go through my people (a.k.a. the marketing department), and based on whether or not my experience was horribly scarring, I decide if I want to do a review. It’s a great system that saves me the embarrassment of being labelled a liar by my three or four readers, and I’m happy to say that only one local restaurant has passed the test so far.

So the next time you see a boy dressed as Imelda Marcos or Jackie Onassis eating in your restaurant, you know that it’s me, lurking in the shadows and silently judging your breadsticks. Trender Bender: seeking out crap food so you don’t have to. Careful, bitches. I’m watching.

This Is WAY Overdue

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or some crap like that. Screw this intro, I'll just get straight to it. See this chick? That's Azeera, my niece. She's like 15 or something, and yeah, super-hot. It totally runs in the family, people.

Sabah actually produces some of the hottest chicks in Malaysia, with a lot of them ending up professional models in the country or abroad. I mean real careers here, not crap where you appear on the runway twice or shake your moneymaker for an "artistic" (read: nude) photographer and suddenly you're a model.

It's time to help a sister out. This is Sharin. She's Sabahan, just moved to KL recently, and apparently, she's been named one of Female mag's 50 Gorgeous 2007. Two options for us here: either go to their site, register for an account and vote online, or use SMS, as in the following format:

Type FM 50G NAME NRIC CONTESTANT NO. SLOGAN and send to 33668.
(Example: FM 50G SHARIN SHAIK 717471857174 37 SHE IS NOT JUST ANOTHER PRETTY FACE and send to 33668).

Remember, the slogan is "She's not just another pretty face," and she's contestant number 37. Sharin's gonna have it tough against the West Malaysian reps, because it's a known fact that East Malaysians are totally, totally not allowed to win anything that will let them outshine the folks in KL. So help out, boys and girls! Contest closes November 25, 2007, so freaking hurry!

Grab mah zambah banana

I am of the opinion that very few things are more terrifying than this giant banana. What horrible procedures do these poor things go through? What ungodly process of genetic manipulation leads them to grow to such ridiculous proportions? More importantly, is this shit even edible?

I'm all for solving world hunger with oversized fruit and vegetables, and later down the line, oversized bovine. These will initially supply the world with a delicious supply of giganto-burgers and huge slabs of mega-cheese, and probably lots of really big shoes.

Said cowzillas will inevitably develop some interspecies form of Mad Cow, that will then throw the human race into the dark ages of a cannibalistic zombie holocaust. Or not.

Gaze upon the fury of this, the biggest honking banana I have ever seen in my entire life. I think my dad bought it more for the novelty than for its gustatory properties.

This thing will haunt my dreams for weeks to come. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. I mean LOOK MAD COW GRAB YOUR ASSES AND RUN MOO

IS THAT YOU, GRANDMA? I'M SO HUNGRY

So my friends and I went out for Halloween, only to be accosted by the cops for, well, doing absolutely nothing. Sons of bitches accused of taunting them by saying "Minta IC" ("Let me see your identification card") as we drove by them with the windows down.

Apparently we were being disrespectful, when we hadn't even said anything at all. We were just laughing. Bastards were probably looking to make a quick buck.

Even better: they were tourist police. They're not supposed to go around bullying people like the regular police, just give directions to tourists. What the fuck, right.

Best part was when they asked threateningly, "Are you male or female?" Isn't it obvious? I said I was a boy. They asked why I was in drag. "Um. Because it's Halloween."

Bitches only backed off when I waved my press ID. Does it really take that much to ward off idiots? I should probably have the New Sabah Times logo tattooed on my face.

But it's okay. Sarah made some calls and managed to contact the, uh, person in charge, if you will, and things should be looking not-so-cool for the three morons who made a point of ruining our night very soon.


So that's me as Little Black Riding Hood, with Stella as, what else, the Devil. I even had a little tupperware of "human flesh" (crushed watermelon in honey and food dye) in my basket that I ate to gross people out. Munch, lick, wipe fingers on apron. So much fun, and not bad for an overnight costume idea, if I do say so myself! Thanks a million for the make-up, Sarah!

This is Sarah. Now you know what she looks like. Not bad, eh? I think it's pretty damn obvious, but yeah, she went as a witch, with a broom and everything. Sorry, dear, you're too pretty to look gross or even remotely witchy. Better luck next time. You know I love you!


Here's Stella "Horny Devil" Tay assaulting the bejesus out of a parking lot angel. She has wings, and I think that's about it. I guess it's a costume. Yeah. Edit: I just noticed how angel's girlfriends are throttling each other in the background. Hahaha, winner!

And to cleanse your mental palate of this truly grotesque piece of amateur drag-queenery, here's a super awesome picture of some really hot person I found on the Internets. Wow, what a hottie. I wish I looked like that.