Man Vs Wild

NOT A BLOG POST TO PLUG DISCOVERY CHANNEL'S SHOW BY BEAR GRYLLS

Some of you might be familiar with this show of an English bloke roaming jungles/desserts/ice cold conditions and pretty much every extreme terrain of this planet showing you techniques on how to survive if you'd get stuck in such a sticky situation.

So by now you'd have caught the rift. It involves sucking tree sap, eating a tapir's anus or chewing on a tree bark, harvesting a sea otters bile as soap. My description might not be the most accurate one but it paints the picture.

Back to the theme of this post. NO i wasnt in any harsh terrain or anything. It involves pretty much the confines of my room while taking a break studying.

So this small episode involves the confluence of my dad visting me last weekend, buying or shall i say impulsive buying of too much fruits particularly persimmons. To be brutally honest not the top of my list in terms of favourite fruits.

So im sure if your familiar with banana's once they ripe the whole bunch decides to go ripe on you and you'd be stuffing yourself with it or banana made 10 ways.

Same thing happened with persimmons. It was ripped or over ripped to the extend that it turned mushy. In the spirit of not wasting food for thousands of African children are starving i decide to give it a go.

Erm texture wise not the most inviting, the dark brownish colour didnt help much either. It resembled healthy looking stool on the Bristol Stool Chart. But it was diabetic-ally sweet.

The innate sense of my inner foodie spurred me on to give it a go. And first strike on the palate wasnt too bad it was like taking plain tea with one too many teaspoons of sugar added. Then it turned unbearable.

Toilet Bowl Mugshot

Mind you i had to go through four of these. Perhaps the only thought that kept me going was my wild imagination thinking that i was in a remote tribe in Africa going through an initiation rite by devouring this magical fruit. And in the spirit of showing great appreciation to my hosts i had to finish it.

But alas by senses kicked in and i had to stop at the last fruit. Gosh the taste still lingers in my mouth!
So that was my small episode of Man Vs Wild. Another possible reason for my courage could probably be the fact that i was hungry.

What time is it Mr Wolf?

Phew! Just got back from the Big Bad Wolf bookfair. For the uninformed the BBW claims to be the worlds largest book fair housed in one of the exhibition halls in Serdang.

Its an annual affair where this crazy book company throws what it claims to be the largest bookfair in the world. Largest? im pretty skeptical about the magnitude of it but in terms of area it covers its pretty much a full fledge convention hall.

Imagine just aisles, and aisles of books. So i had to go, it was more of an accident as everybody has lost their lustre and sense of humour including me during these stressful periods. Even typing this makes me think i could be revising on my anatomy or reading up a pathological case.

So hitched a ride from a friend which announced on twitter that he was going to BBW so i tagged along. And upon arrival the first thing that strikes me is families carrying bags of books and most of them HARDBACKS. That to me is a sure indicator of a good sale. Lets be honest if given a choice im sure you'd buy a paperback or wait until a paperback version of the book is released before purchasing it because the contents still the same.

First thing i did was to grab something to eat and bulk up on energy. Nah that wasnt the case it was more like i skipped breakfast and lunch and cut straight into an early dinner. Pizza Hut was there too so it wasnt all that bad.

One thing i like in particular about BBW is the sense of humour that they have giving you a quaint feeling even before attending. Oh how i wish more book companies loose that sense of formality and make themselves more lively. Im sure that'd make people want to read more.

After getting your self to gripes with the sheer size of the hall itself and the books in it grab a box. Thats probably the best way to haul your selected books around.

Then GO MAD!!!

Sir Wogan made his presence felt with so many of his books present.

Of course i got 1!

Initial reactions WAH, OMG, WTF SO CHEAP, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? HARDBACKS?
BUT I JUST BOUGHT THIS FOR LIKE 5X THE PRICE 2 WEEKS AGO *SMACKS YOURSELF ON THE HEAD*

And it goes on and on. Books have a fix price of either Rm 5, 8, 10 , 15 or 25 (the highest i'd manage to spot)

Use the Pram when the box gets full. How clever! LOL

Sections of particular interest to me would be the autobiography and biography, science, travel and magazine sections. I was hoping to find some good comics there but the only thing that i spotted was their Star Trek ones. But didn't get it in the end.

For fans of Fiction, im sure you'd be able to spend half a day just browsing that section alone.

I had to exercise self restrain to the maximum as i'd be leaving KL end of this year and it'd probably end up being shipped back home. Such a shame if i hadn't rein myself i'd probably end up with more books for sure.

The only other regret was that i didnt have the time and it wasnt physically possible for me to browse through the ficiton section. I was hopin to pick up an Ian Rankin novel and a few Jeff archers and John Grisham's for my mum.

But total damage Rm 64 for 5 books and 1 magazine. (2 hard backs)

Can i hear you say WHAT?

During regular times i'd be only be able to purchase 2 novels for that money.

Gosh i wish i'd be back for it next year.

Your Body Is a Wonderland

Hmmm i cant really recall if i had ever posted an academically related post. To me this blog has always been a refuge from the hours outside my academic life of medical sciences. Seeing how high the pressure that im actually facing right now its no surprise that the following topic managed to creep into my blogging life as well. But rest assured it wont be me talking about anatomy or strangely rare and bizarre diseases but hard hitting issues that affects a significant amount of people in our society.

In this day and age like it or not looks and appearance of a person plays a major role in making the first impression to anyone. Yea yea as the proverb goes dont judge the book by its cover but how many of us are able to live and breathe by those exact words constantly. But anyways my brother recommended to me recently a television program in UK's channel 4 called Embarrassing Bodies.

As crude and rude as it might sound. It documents all the strange cases involving rather embarrassing issues like men with abnormally large breast, general appearance defects, and a recurring problem being issues with the "gentleman's special area" if you catch my riff. But one of the true credibility of UK's reality tele is that all these patients are real. The doctors involved in this program are genuine British Trained doctors which i hope to one day fall into the same ranks as.

As a medical student i can thoroughly assure you that the doctors are very very professional and that is probably one of the main reasons why im watching this program not for the cases but for the way the doctors talk and establish a rapport with their patients as well as the diagnostic test and procedures carried out is done in the same manner as i was trained to.

I'd swear at this point in time if i had to handle a male patient which came to me with abnormally large breasts or a women with a large vagina as serious as i might sound i would probably subconsciously throw in a smile.

*p.s the above condition is called pectus excavatum where the chest wall is slightly cave in. And admittedly i do have a small degree of pectus excavatum which becomes noticeable when im wearing a tight t-shirt. I never noticed it until i was college and someone commented on it. Naturally the comment coming from a girl made it especially embarrassing.

And one of the best things of this program is that it touches on issues that would usually be clouded by male ego and pride which is in regard to penis size and length.

Im sure as Asians we are particularly reserved when we have to talk about 'defects' about our physical looks but to me its one of the toughest thing to get a patient to open up to. Even if its in the best interest of our patients that this may have certain pathological implications.

For girls you have to admit the male doctor here is ridiculously good looking.

But one of the true highlights of this program is to me apart from the health awareness, the ability of the physician to get their patients to open up and touch on such a sensitive issue is to show the treatments and different medically related avenues that can be carried out to solve problems of such nature.

If your interested and convinced by my pitch here the link for a full episode has been listed below.

Megavideo (click here)

Beer Love

We're inching towards the near end of September which marks how little time left i have to my final exams =( but on a brighter tastier and more refreshing note it means that octobers just round the corner. So what's so special about october? Oktoberfest of course. Originally celebrated as an 18 day festivity in Bavaria Germany with the help of beautiful globalisation this is one of the many western influences that carved its own home in our country with the first major celebration back in 2008.

So this post which was drafted some ump-teen years ago and its probably more relevant now than ever. Since the conception of this blog 1 beer review and beer based restaurant has been penned. So here's another one to add to that with a few beers some more established than others and a few wild cards added inside.

#1 Corona

A beer which has been in Malaysia for quite a long time i'd reckon but never really did take off in a wide scale. Some people regard it as a 'girls beer' but the very image that disproves this would be Fast and Furious 4 if im not mistaken where Vin Diesel goes up to the bar and orders a corona. Manly much?

Its notably paler compared to regular lagers and comes with minimal amount of head. To me its slightly gritty taste at the end which im guessing comes from the addition of corn into the mix gives it a unique edge over other lagers. Why corn? well maybe perhaps its a staple ingredient in Mexico's culinary heritage with dishes such as tortilla's.

Verdict: Overall a pretty good tasting beer, hate it i dont but as a pairing beer with my meals would be ideal.

#2 Strong Bow

Not a beer to be frank more of a cider, a totally different species altogether. But then again not too distant maybe like a horse's relationship to a zebra.

I got this from cold storage at Rm 9.90 and if im not mistaken it going around for Rm 20 per pint for draught of course in pubs around KL. Ironically its rated as one of the cheapest alcoholic beverage in the UK and the most consumed cider. It has a much paler colour compared to corona. Taste wise its a different animal altogether compared to beer as it doesn't have that overwhelming flavour combination of malt and hops that hit you upon the first draw  but more of a sour flavour with a zesty right hook on your palate.

Best served extra cold! damn straight, probably one of the few things best served cold in life other than revenge.

Verdict: Very easy drink to get use to but with all its mild flavour the most prominent flavour would be its alcohol flavour.

P.s before this i actually had the misconception that women going through menopause should take cider regularly, not too sure on the credibility of this but i sourced this from my mum =P

#3 Light Beer duo

Found these 2 beers going for a promotional price of Rm 5.50 each at Giant supermarket. Both are of South African origin. Never really had beer from that part of the world before but not much harm to my pocket at 5.50.

It was an easy choice here. Hands down castle trumps the latter, Hansa. Castle lite has all the proper properties of a light beer without turning you away. Light, clear and bold flavours with a nice crisp at the end with only a minimal amount of edge of the malt and hops combo.

There's definitely a printing error on the bottle. Pilsener should never taste like this! A little too much carbonation going on from a bottled beer with barely any flavour to really grasp. Another thing i wasn't so sure about was that there was some residues or mysterious tiny objects floating around like a seamonkey in the bottle. Could it be residues from brewing or just dirt?

Verdict: Castle lite Castle lite Castle lite Castle lite!

#4 Bavaria

Mmmm Bavaria the first image that pops to mind:

mmm the memories....Bavaria got its indirect publicity in the previous world cup 2010 when a group of Bavarian girls were subjected to FIFA investigation after pulling off this shenanigan which provoked the official beer sponsor, Budweiser.

Very refreshing beer. Light in flavour in a good way. I’d reckon it’d make a good combination with most pub grubs. Its a good alternative to the generic names that we get here, now im beating myself up for not remembering where i got it from.

Verdict: Im already imagining myself enjoying a nice piece of steak and fries with a bottle of cold bavaria to go with.

I was quite surprise to see the same brewery making non-alcoholic beverages. These beverages to me carries a slight sense of hypocrisy like how vegetarians have "fake meat". Much cleaner cut taste compared to the whole range of hoffenburg alcohol less beverages that i have tried. Very light on flavours with barely any ressemblance in the addition of malt or hops to its composition.

Verdict:  Not something that i’ll walk into the supermarket just to buy. But if your into non-alcoholic beers give hoffenburg a try. Most hypermarket chains carry them. Best flavour so far would be peach and strawberry.

#5 Breda

 I remember updating a facebook status and tweeting about this beer in particular on how it somehow worked quite well as a essential component in a couch potato's diet. The responses i got were rather unusual i had a friend in particular which questioned why i was buy such random corner shop brewed no name piss beer. Breda? what? Never heard of it previously either. But im enthusiastic about trying new beer, its supposedly brewed in Germany Holland. So that settles alot of worries.

Ok so taste? Tastes pretty good actually. A proper full bodied beer with a stronger hops flavour. I remember getting it from Giant supermarket (it seems a little weird at this point but im not endorsing this supermarket name nor am i affiliated to it, it just so happens that i bump into new random beers there.)

Verdict: Proper tasting beer with a relatively unknown name, its like the Beer that Tiger never brewed.

So 5 beers to try in the coming month. Till then stay safe!

Cheers!~

P.s: I wrote this post in a sober state of mind.

Facelift?

For followers of this blog the major difference upon landing on this blog would be the change in template. Nothing really shocking, just a change in colour. Not too sure of it either but a good change is the centre column where the words are are now in white. So with the contrasting dark background it actually brings a closer focus to the words as well as the content. (well thats the whole idea behind it anyways)

But anyways still gotta tidy up the labels column which is currently is in a state of total chaotic disastrous mess of melted words heaped up with many letters.

I should be blogging more regularly i know that and i have a calling for that but circumstances in these few months dont allow me to do so. Erm im thinking its gonna take a while before the facelift is completed or it might just be scrapped. I have a few ideas in mind but just got to find the right mood and frame of mind to get down to it. And now im currently very very short of that.

Well if you like the old look drop me a comment, and if you are willing to design a template or have any ideas just drop me a comment.