Why Would I Write

Category: Random

  • Pan Mee is

    One of the greatest foods known to mankind, in my opinion at least.

    Pan Mee or flour noodles (what I called it growing up), one of the few good things from Malaysia, has been a staple of my diet ever since I was a young boy. There’s just something wonderful about sinking your teeth into juicy chunks of flour dough that’s been cooked in delicious soup. Add in some minced pork, mushrooms, mani cai, deep-fried shallots, a helpful serving of sambal and you couldn’t ask for more. My favorite part about pan mee – when eating the hand-pulled variants, you can finish the meal with just a spoon.

    It’s also deceptively filling. I’m not sure if it’s because the flour expands in your stomach (that’s what I’ve heard), but it’s not hard to get full on a single bowl (especially if you take it with soup). While it’s one of the best dishes available in Malaysia, and it’s not too hard to cook, it makes me wonder why it isn’t a widespread phenomenon yet. It’s not outlandish or filled with exotic ingredients, I can’t believe it hasn’t spread globally yet. I’m pretty sure someone could start up a Pan Mee restaurant in a western country and do well there.

    Pan Mee is widely available in Kuala Lumpur and is cooked in many different styles depending on which restaurant you go to. The most common ones are cooked with soup, dry with black sauce (with optional chili flakes). One of the things I like about the dish is that you can’t really go wrong ordering it – the worst you’ll get is something with insufficient flavor or stale anchovies. Also, super biased opinion, my mom makes the best Pan Mee ever.

    While typing this piece, I realized why I never write about food. I have no idea how to describe flavor. Or appearance. Or aroma. Or whatever goes into describing food. Also, I have no idea why I wanted to write about Pan Mee – I was just inspired after having a delicious bowl of it for dinner. Feel free to drop any Pan Mee restaurant recommendations you have if you think I should check it out!

  • Sleeping Upright

    Back when I flew a lot for work, one of the things which annoyed me were flight attendants waking me up before landing to straighten my seat and pull the window shades up. While I knew it was protocol and they were just doing their job, I never understood the reasons for it. To me it seemed like they were being anal about something so trivial because it was never explained to me before. Today, I decided to Google why and according to these articles, it’s mainly for passenger safety. I learned something new.

    Anyway, since the frequent interruption of my sleep, I adapted by learning how to sleep in an upright position, and I have a beanie pulled over my head to block out light. Now the flight attendants don’t bother me on flights anymore, unless I put the sticker for them to wake me up for meals.

    I still haven’t learned how to not drool during sleep. My only tip is to not wear black so your saliva stains don’t show on your shirts.

    I kinda miss flying long distances. Long hours in a cozy seat, while you enjoy old movies, music or podcasts with no interruptions. No texts, emails or phone calls. Just you, alone with your own thoughts, soaring through the sky.

    Alone time is good time.

  • Hoarder Mentality

    I’ve seen the horrors of hoarders, thanks to all those shows on TV. I’ve always wondered how people can do such things to themselves. Collect so much shit until the point where it’s practically impossible to walk around their homes without tripping on anything. Why do these people want more things than they need?

    Today it struck me, I have a similar mentality too. Fortunately for me, I’m mostly limited by my budget so I can’t really afford to buy everything I want on whim. However, my problem doesn’t lie with physical goods. Beyond the countless books I have waiting to be read (thanks Big Bad Wolf!), I have more digital content than I can ever hope to finish consuming in a lifetime. I’ve got tons of music. Every time I fall in love with an artist, I tend to download their whole discography so I have access to it anytime. It just annoys me to know that I don’t have the complete collection of an artist’s catalog even if I’m only a fan of a couple of albums or songs.

    At first I thought, maybe I’m some sort of completionist, but then I realized I’m far from it. Especially when it comes to video games – I don’t really care about collecting all the achievements or getting every item in the game. I enjoy games pretty casually – as long as I finish the game and get to experience the story, I’m satisfied. I don’t need to do anything extra to enjoy it.

    I’ve got enough movies, TV series and cartoons to last a lifetime if I played them continuously nonstop. When will I find the time to watch them all? I won’t. Yet they sit idly on my hard disk drives, metaphorically collecting dust, until I decide to watch them. Same thing with all my ebooks and digital comics.

    Computer games – I’ve got a few hundred games in my Steam library, many I know I’ll never touch (titles I’ve obtained from bundles) and yet many more in my wish list. I bought them all because I was interested in them and they were available at a cheap price. I would love to play them all, but I don’t have the time to do so. I have more guitars and keyboards than I need, and god knows what else that’s hidden in the back of my shelves.

    And all these things I’ve mentioned have only been acquired over the past decade. There’s a whole lot more than I can’t recall at the moment I’ve been collecting my whole life. I used to keep empty alcohol bottles when I first started drinking, but I got rid of them in January. I know I don’t have any problems throwing out things I don’t need, I just need to find out why I wanted to keep so many in the first place, and stop that problem before it starts. I don’t want to end up on TV with a crew of people trying to coax me out of my room and clearing out my house because it has become hazardous to live in. It’s time to stop.