September 24, 2009
When I first heard of this activity from my colleague I thought it’s going to involve shooting birds! Obviously I was wrong. It is actually one of those Olympic events where they shoot at flying clay discs. Silly me, but don’t you agree that the name is a little confusing, if you have not heard about it before?
Anyway just managed to catch on the second outing with my company’s social club last Saturday, organised by my colleague who is a member of the shooting club. Very fortunate we are. Particularly after finding out on the day that the shooting range is actually located inside an army camp. In another words without my colleague I think it will be vey difficult for me to get in and to be able to play with a shotgun.
So the place was very well guarded, with armed soldiers guarding the entrance into the campBeAns before we could lay our hands on the shotguns, we were warned about the fire power of these shotguns, as part of the health and safety briefing, as usual. When we carry the gun around the ground we were told that the gun should not be loaded. And we need to keep the shotgun in open position, so that others will feel safe around us. From then on I got quite stressed knowing that I’ll be using such a powerful weapon, of mass destruction from my point of view anyway, for the next two hours.
I felt slightly better after firing my first shot. The recoil from the gun was not as bad as I anticipated. And it was incredibly simple to operate the gun, although it does require some clever skills to effortlessly open up and reload the gun. The size 20 gun was however a bit too heavy for me (20 is the size of the cartridge). Towards the end, I was really struggling to hold up the gun with my left arm. I made such complete mess with my final few shots that it was embarrasing. Nevertheless overall the whole thing was more fun than I thought it would be. The coach was excellent, friendly and approachable. The weather turned out to be very good. And most of all I managed to hit some discs, although it was all down hill towards the end. But will I take up this sport, as one of my hobbies? Most probably not. Handling fire arms is just not something I find pleasure in…
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September 13, 2009
Social networking sites like Facebook are such commanding, in terms of their ability to capture eyeballs. Their appeal seems to lie in many Facebook users, and their friends, visit Facebook frequently, and religiously “contributing” posts as well, say everyday? It is definitely more “rewarding” for them to visit a portal like Facebook where they can find out what their friends are thinking/doing, than to visit their friends’ blogs or websites individually. Too time consuming, perhaps. For the owner of a blog like myself, it is definitely much easier to put in a one-liner on my Facebook’s wall than to blog, which requires more thoughts. It is a shame really. However what I write on my blog is more far reaching than what I put onto my Facebook. For example, people who are not my “friends” in Facebook will not be able to see what I wrote in Facebook, for privacy reason. At least search engines are not allowed to crawl Facebook’s contents. But anyone can search for what I’ve written on here. So it is rewarding to see what I’ve written can be of some use to anyone who finds it. I think that alone will keep me going, at least for the time being… 
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August 13, 2009
How 3, a UK mobile operator, can justify charging its customers £2 a minute when they are overseas is beyond me. Even many years ago, it used to only cost us the price of a local call when we make a call using our mobile phones while in Malaysia. After many years of lobbying and pressures from the regulator to reduce mobile phone operators’ roaming charges, overseas call charges etc, I would have thought that call charges when overseas have reduced by a great deal. What a ripped off! To be honest everyone knows that their network coverage in the UK has been dismal, most likely the worst among the five mobile network operators. The reason one of our phones is contracted to them is because the price plan we are offered is comparatively cheaper than the cheapest offered by other operators. And we do know very well “you get what you pay for”. But what we don’t know is they are also in the business of ripping off customers! Making a phone call in Malaysia using O2 instead costed us half of what is charged by 3. Unbelievable. So my advice for you is remember to read all the small prints and their price guides before trying to use your mobile phones overseas.
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July 31, 2009
Recently, the Food Standards Agency released a damning report on the nutritional values of organic produce compared to that of mass-scale farming. The result was that they didn’t find much difference in nutritional benefits between organic and non-organic produce. One needs to remember that the research conducted did not take into account the effects of pesticides, which is one of the main concerns for people opting organic food.
Honestly, I was not surprised by the findings. When organic products first became fashionable 10 years ago, I told all my friends that I didn’t think it would make much difference in terms of nutritional value. If it did, then all the fertilisers that are used by mass-scale farmers would be in vain.
10 years on, I still believe that there isn’t much difference, but my perspectives changed. Organic farming isn’t about nutrition, although some findings suggest that dairy products are found to contain higher omega-3 in organic produce. Whether this is conclusive I don’t know. But it certainly sounds more pleasant to know that your cows had chewed on meadows rather than cramped in a cage fed with grain day in day out.
Now, I don’t eat meat, but I still care where my milk or eggs come from. I want to know that they have been raised naturally, rather than in an industrialised environment. I have seen tv programmes showing chickens in barns. There was so little space and no natural sunlight. Some of the chickens couldn’t even move because their legs are deformed as a result of the rearing environment.
An all too familiar argument is that organic farming would never be able to feed the whole world. True it may be, but do you know that a lot of fuel and energy are wasted to run a mass-scale farm? If one is so concerned about food scarcity, the simplest solution is to become a vegetarian, or massively cut down your meat intake. Mass-scale farming only solves the problem temporarily. So long as human continues to devour our planet’s resources as they do, food scarcity will remain a serious problem.
Another important reason why I support organic farming is obviously for environmental reasons. If mass-scale farming continues as they do, we would run out of any wildlife sooner than you could pronounce the word. Already we are depleting our forest reserve. Organic farms keep our environment friendlier to the wildlife. I have visited organic farms and it is very pleasant to know that the food that you eat, is a result of natural farming habitat. There were insects that helped to keep pests under control. When those vegetables arrived at my door, I feel very satisfied knowing that not only that they taste better, I have also helped to maintain ecological balance by opting organic. Yes, may be it is not enough, but it’s a step to the right direction.
No doubt that organic is more expensive than non-organic, but you will be surprised that it isn’t that much more expensive. C and I have massively cut down on dining out. With the savings, it is more than enough to make a feast from organic produce.
For those who remain sceptical, I totally understand, for I was once the same. But for those who are still on the fence, I hope you would give it a try.
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July 25, 2009
Life events can be quite interesting. My father-in-law initially started out invented a new way of grinding grains into powder form, and then selling them as nutrition food for those who are health conscious. Interestingly, after selling them for years now, it turns out that they are an invaluable source of nutrition for patients who are suffering from kidney problems! Yes patients, not just those who are alive and kicking. And what I found it most incredible is there are success stories, more and more as well, where patients no longer have to go for kidney transplants or the expensive kidney dialysis.
As a kid I always heard about horror stories, from my mum as well, of having to go for kidney dialysis if I don’t drink enough water etc. If patients are given a choice I think they most definitely would not want to go through such process. So if you don’t want to suffer from such kidney problems then remember to take care of your kidneys.
I mean I was quite sceptical as well when I heard that the nutrition food is that effective, thinking that it may be just a one-off thing for a certain patient with a certain condition. But recently we have a tour guide in Malaysia who is supposed to go for kidney transplants end of this month. So we thought why not introduce him the nutrition food. To be honest at the time we don’t know how severe is his condition, but kidney transplant does sound like the last resort doesn’t it? So we do not harbour much hope of him trying the nutrition food out, and we do not want to make things worse either, although W’s father claims that he has seen patients in worse conditions having recovered after taking in his nutrition food for 20 days Anyway our tour guide has made a decision to postpone his kidney operation. From what we heard, he is feeling better now that he has started taking in the nutrition food, to our delights.
Doctors are very good at curing symptoms. But what people often forget is they are what they eat. If we can change our diet and eat good nutritional food, we really cannot underestimate the impact they have on our body and general wellness. As is the case here, where kidneys are resurrected, although not quite there yet for the tour guide we know, by taking in natural food. We’ll keep you posted on our new website at www.kidneynutritiondiet.com. And please do not hesitate to let us know if you have friends or families who are suffering from kidney problems. We’d very much like to help the best we can.
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