The following was shamelessly lifted from Neal Stephenson's book "Cryptonomicon".  He has managed to capture perfectly the Cap'n Crunch experience, more or less.


 The gold nuggets of Cap'n Crunch pelt the bottom of the bowl with a sound like glass rods being snapped in half.

Tiny fragments spiral away from their corners and ricochet around on the white porcelain surface. World-class cereal-eating is a dance of fine compromises. The giant heaping bowl of sodden cereal, awash in milk, is the mark of the novice. Ideally one wants the bone-dry cereal nuggets and the cryogenic milk to enter the mouth with minimal contact and for the entire reaction between them to take place in the mouth. Randy has a set of mental blueprints worked out for a special cereal-eating spoon that will have a tube running down the handle and a little pump for the milk, so that you can spoon dry cereal up out of a bowl, hit a button with your thumb, and squirt milk into the bowl of the spoon even as you are introducing it into your mouth. The next-best thing is to work in small increments, putting only a small amount of Cap'n Crunch in your bowl at a time and eating it all up before it becomes a pit of loathsome slime, which takes about thirty seconds in the case of Cap'n Crunch.
He pours the milk with one hand while jamming the spoon in with the other, not wanting to waste a single moment of the magical, golden time when the cold milk and Cap'n Crunch are together but have not yet begun to pollute each other's essential natures: two Platonic ideals separated by a boundary layer a molecule wide.

Where the flume of milk splashes over the spoon-handle, the polished stainless steel fogs with condensation. Randy of course uses whole milk, because otherwise why bother with the whole exercise? Anything less is indistinguishable from water, and besides he thinks that the fat in the whole milk acts as some kind of a buffer that retards the dissolution-into-slime process. The giant spoon goes into his mouth before the milk in the bowl has even had time to seek its own level.

A few drips come off the bottom and are caught by his freshly washed goatee (still trying to find the right balance between beardedness and vulnerability, Randy has allowed one of these to grow). Randy sets the milk-pod down, grabs a fluffy napkin, lifts it to his chin, and uses a pinching motion to sort of lift the drops of milk from his whiskers rather than smashing and smearing them down into the beard.

This happens without thinking about it; all his concentration is fixed on the interior of his mouth, which naturally he cannot see, but which he can imagine in three dimensions as if zooming through it in a virtual reality display. Here is where a novice would lose his cool and simply chomp down. A few of the nuggets would explode between his molars but then his jaw would snap shut and drive all of the unshattered nuggets straight up into his palate where their armour of razor-sharp dextrose crystals would inflict massive collateral damage, turning the rest of the meal into a sort of pain-hazed death march and rendering him Novocain-mute for three days.
Randy has over time worked out a really fiendish Cap'n Crunch-eating strategy that revolves around using the nugget's most deadly features to his advantage by playing them against each other.

The nuggets themselves are pillow-shaped and vaguely striated in a way that he has always thought is supposed to echo piratical treasure chests or something. Now, in a flake type of cereal, Randy's strategy would never work, but the Cap'n Crunch could never be manufactured in flake form because then it would be all surface area, and it must been obvious to the cereal engineers at General Mills that this would be suicidal madness, that Cap'n Crunch stuff in that configuration would last about as long, when immersed in milk, as snowflakes sifting down into a deep fryer. No, they had to find a shape that would minimise surface area, which ideally would be a sphere (this is why healthy cereals tend to be flakes and sugary ones tend to be round). As some sort of compromise between the sphere that is dictated by Euclidean geometry and whatever sunken-treasure-related shapes that the cereal-aestheticians were probably clamouring for, they came up with this hard-to-pin-down striated pillow formation.

The important thing about which, for Randy's purposes, is that the individual pieces of Cap'n Crunch are, to a very rough approximation, shaped kind of like molars. The strategy, then, is to use the Cap'n Crunch against itself by grinding the nuggets together in the center of the oral cavity, making the cereal chew itself, like stones in a lapidary tumbler, minimising any contact with gums and palate --- contacts bound to be bloody, violent and painful. Like advanced ballroom dancing, verbal explanations (or for that matter watching videotapes while sitting on your ass) only go so far and then your body has to learn how to do this.

How to scare the buhjesus out of a 47 year old man

or how a DRE (google it) ruined my day.

Normally I wouldn't mention something this personal about my father but it's relevant and sets the scene for this post. Dad, if talking about this offends you please let me know and I'll remove all mention of you.

Malaysian Time, the intricacies are lost on non-Malaysians

As you all know, I have been living in Malaysia for awhile now, 7 years, and in this time I have, I think, adapted to most things Malaysian, most that is but not all. Time and how people treat it are things that I find interesting, infuriating, mythical but most of all inconvenient.

This and That

Getting Hits from unexpected places
I have had people from Canada and the US read this little corner of the Internet. This isn't really all that remarkable when you consider those are the places where I know people and have invited them. What's not

The "Train"

The word "Train" is in quotes for a reason, it's because riding the train is an experience I wouldn't wish on anyone, well may a few people, but not a lot.

As some people might know, I have recently started a new job in an international call center, The office is in the heart of K.L. and the only reasonable and affordable way to get there is by public transport. It really does make more sense than driving, there is the cost of tolls ( RM3.60 each way) then there is the

Agents over here

In Malaysia there are a lot of people who profit from the desperate, the naive and sadly the foolish, these people are commonly called agents. There are Employment agents, maid's agents, Immigration agents and GRO agents (I'll explain that later). These are the 4 basic types of agents prowling for people who want a job .

Employment Agents are probably the least offensive type, they tell you a lot of bullshit to get you to pay

Dickinsfield Crusaders

A few days ago I got a little nostalgic and was watching a few YouTube videos of Marching Bands, yes I was one of those geeky, uncoordinated kids that was in a marching band. Well because the Internet makes getting information so easy, I started poking around.

Worst/best analogies written by high school students

Apparently the Washington Post held a contest in which high school teachers sent in the “worst” analogies they’d encountered in grading their students’ papers over the years. (I place “worst” in quotes because many of these actually strike me as funny).  I'm pretty sure the students were going for bad analogies, if not, you really do have to wonder about schools. Enjoy!

Am I the only person in Malaysia that can hear?

It has been a little while since I posted last and I have been pondering if I should post this,  I don't think it's a rant, but it's something I can't do a single thing about.  I have been trying to paint Malaysia with nothing but a good brush, but I have to confess to not having anything good to post right now, I am not feeling all that warm to Malaysia right now, oh its nothing concrete and it'll pass.

Teaching English in a foreign country or why I giggle every time I think about it.

Ok, lets get the laughing and the jokes about me teaching English out of the way, I have heard or made up most of the jokes myself. When I first came to Malaysia I looked for a job, nothing to amazing you know, nothing like CEO of Proton, well I would take that job if they were silly enough to offer it.

Why don't we eat dogs?

I was talking to someone the other day and we got talking about weird foods, snake, rabbit, twinkies, you know weird things we eat or don't eat. The whole conversation got me thinking about things that I don't like to eat, and I decided that I am a little picky when it comes to foods I'll stuff in my mouth.

Happy Valentines Day

Yet another holiday invented by the greeting card companies and perpetrated by women who like chocolate and men who want some, no not chocolate. 

Why chocolate, a smart man would give something healthier and less fattening, just sayin.

I trolled for a few Valentines Day cards and of course I found the usual ones that looked pretty much just like every other card from every other year, but then there were some special ones that I have to share with you. I swear that I didn't make these up, they are real cards that you could buy if you were so inclined.

Why spell check is evil or how education is still useful.

Hi, My name is Anthony and I was a dumb ass in school.

As anyone who knows me well will tell you, I sucked in school, it took me 30 years to admit it out loud. I was one of those students that should have done well but I just didn't apply myself, lazy is what they would have called it back then, now they would have some acronym to explain it. But in all honesty, I was lazy, I hated school, it was just a social gathering that I felt out of sync with or better yet just not a part of.  In the end, I believe I manage to get what I mean across, or at least no ones told me otherwise.

Expats, who the hell do you think you are?

I have lived here for close to 7 years and I have become one with Malaysia, ok thats not true, I still don't like chicken feet, but the fact remains that I have never felt like an expatriate. I have since maybe the first month felt like this would be home for a few years at least, decades more likely.

To be blunt and honest, I don't like Expats, although technically I am an Expat but I have never been that arrogant ass who is always complaining about the way things are in Malaysia.

More Weather

Yesterday I wrote about the weather and I have many times in the past said that the weather here in KL is always the same, except when it isn't.

So some one reading the blog sent me a few pictures of the snow in Edmonton this year and while I was reading the email, the rain gods decided to dump the works on us, so I took a few pictures, but really the pictures didn't show what it was like. 

So here are a couple of videos I took a few hours ago, I would have uploaded them as it was happening except that the power went out.  I have to confess to being absolutely useless when it comes to video editing, so I'm uploading the raw footage from the less than stellar video camera function on my iPhone 3Gs, not Panavision for sure. Sorry if this post isn't all that pretty, but I am learning how to do these posts with video.

Weather WTF?

Well what the hell is going on with the weather?

I have been hearing news about a major winter storm going through North America, so of course I looked it up and it looks like a huge storm. It doesn't look like Alberta is getting hit too bad, but I'm not 100% sure. Since my parents are living in Mesa Arizona, I had a look and from all accounts they are freezing their navels off, navel oranges that is. So Mom and Dad, if you are reading this could ya let me know you're not frozen? Then again being good Canadians they are probably bitching that the golf course is closed. :)

This image strangely, is from Edmonton

Changes

I've made, yet again, a few changes to the blog. I changed the way the individual posts are displayed, so rather than loading all the posts written, you will now see 1 post per page. I'm not sure I like this just yet. This should make the blog load faster and I hope make it easier to navigate.

I've also added the Mobile formating, simply means that if you want to read posts from your mobile device, you can and the looks are slightly different, better? Not too sure just yet.

as always, if you have comments please feel free to flame me or whatever.

Cheers

The Internet Facts of Life as Explained by a 12-Year-Old

The following was stolen shamelessly, but I thought it was too funny not to post. there is a link at the end for the original page, I "Borrowed" it from. I removed the photo that came with the article because, well I just thought it was creepy having a picture of someone else's 12 year old daughter on my blog, so if you want to see the original you'll just have to go to the original article (link at bottom of post).

Being Homesick

OK the title pretty much sums things up, we have all been homesick. I miss a lot of things in Canada but most importantly, I miss my family, not always, I only miss them when I think about them and thats a lot of the time lately, but thats something for a different post. I really get homesick when I am missing things, stupid things, but things I can't get over here and really its surprisingly not a huge list.

Facebook

Social Networking sites are or have been very popular in Malaysia, there was MySpace, Friendster, Hotmail, Yahoo and more, that were at one time very popular here, these things tend to go in cycles. But FaceBook is by far the biggest Social Network in Malaysia and I honestly don't know a single person here that doesn't have a FaceBook account. There are billboards, posters and fliers all about FaceBook over here, I have never seen advertising for a Social Network before. My understand is that FaceBook is not by any stretch of the imagination an Asian "thing" it is a world wide phenomenon. Try and think of 5 people you know who don't have a FaceBook account? Bet you can't, lets leave the old folks out of it anyone over 60 doesn't count.