On February this year, I experienced a food poisoning health scare.  A packet of stale nasi lemak reduced me to a weak, shivering husk of a human whose sole purpose in life then was to expunge the toxic from the body from BOTH ends.  I must have vomited more than 8 times until only bile came out.  And let’s not even go to what the other end produced.

That health scare made me rethink my eating habits.  In researching for ways to make my digestive system healthy, I came across many great health articles on the web and realised that my normal diet isn’t doing my body much good.

One thing led to another and soon I also developed the desire to exercise frequently.  The rainy season then made me frustrated as over and over again, my brisk walking plan in the nearby park was foiled.  I could literally feel my fats rejoicing and multiplying with a vengeance.  What’s a girl to do?

She enrolled in the gym nearest to her work place, that’s what. A place that’s convenient to get to, opens early and closes late, and has ample equipment and clean facilities.

The first week of gym was tough.  My whole body ached for days after.  Pilates class was worse.  I ached in places I didn’t know existed.  But after two weeks, my body grew stronger and I could exercise every day.  To keep boredom from setting in, I alternated my cardio workouts with swimming at my condo.

In two weeks, colleagues started commenting how my arms have slimmed down.  In two months, they were raving about how much weight I’ve lost.

The thing is, I didn’t really lose much weight.  1 to 2 kgs at most.  What matters was, I look healthier, feel more energetic and ready to kick some ass.  Next month, I’ll be embarking on my very first 10km marathon!  Wish me luck!

Food-wise, I’ve stayed away from fast food and indulging my cravings for chocs and such once a week.  In March, I’ve embarked on a 7-day detox with Juvanex which did wonders for my digestive system.  Talk about total cleansing.

People tell me that it’s good to have a workout buddy and such, but I don’t have such a luxury.  My evening walking buddy have resigned and moved up north.  And until God provides me with one exercise buddy, He’s the one keeping me motivated not to make excuses for skipping gym.  I don’t know how He does it but He’s doing a good job :)

Traveling is also a bane to a gym-goer’s existence.  Lots of folks drop off the tread-mill after vacations, holidays and work travel.  I can understand why.  A change in any set routine can do much damage to one’s health and exercise goals.  But the key is to hit the gym as soon as you return from your trips.  No excuses.

Traveling is a big part of my life.  And so is keeping healthy.  The two can co-exist in harmony.  It just takes a little planning and a lot of discipline.

Next, I’ll talk about my favourite health gadgets that helps me keep to my exercise goals and makes them fun!

[url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000067DNF/coolcatalystc-20][img]“/images/reviews/lotr1.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”cover” hspace=”3″ vspace=”3″ align=”left”[/img][/url] The extended version of LOTR – Fellowship of the Ring (FOTR) is most suitable for home viewing. I cannot imagine sitting in a cinema for 4 solid hours to watch it to completion. I watched the 4-VCD version and split it to watching 2 VCDs a day. It’s more palatable that way.

I am not a true-blue LOTR or Tolkien fan. Tried reading the book after watching FOTR in year 2000 but it was just too draggy for me. I prefer the more action-packed genre like those of John Grisham, some of Michael Crichton books and of course, my all-time favourite, [url=www.agathachristie.com]Agatha Christie[/url].

Ok, back to FOTR – The Extended Version.

MF, Kevin, Jo and I watched Pygmalion yesterday. The promo bit below was irresistible to theater-goers with a penchant for language play and the like.

A tale about language, class, manners and matters of the heart that is as true today as it was at the beginning of the last century. And given Malaysia’s unique penchant for the use and misuse of English; the opportunities for Manglish, malapropisms and hilarious turns of phrase are fantastic.

When MF managed to get good seats at 40% off (thanks to Maxis One Club), we decided to go ahead and watch the local play that was based on Pygmalion (from which My Fair Lady was based upon).

Pygmalion is a character from the Roman poet Ovid in the tenth book of his Metamorphoses. Pygmalion is a sculptor who falls in love with a statue he has made.

Pygmalion, son of Belus, was a lonely sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory. He prayed to Venus, the goddess of beauty and love, who took pity on him and brought the statue to life. ~ excerpt taken from here

By then, our expectations were quite low, thanks to some bad reviews that we read. But since we’ve bought the tickets already, we have no choice but to go ahead lah.

Throughout the show, I couldn’t help comparing it to the wonderful experience I had watching My Fair Lady on vcd. How real the chemistry was between Eliza Doolittle and gruff Prof Higgins. How well-crafted the story line was, that the only bits that seemed draggy were the parts that featured Eliza’s dad.

Our local Pygmalion rated quite low in those areas. I couldn’t feel the connection between the two leading casts. At several points of the show I actually found myself yawning and nodding away sleepily because I found it draggy. Or maybe I had that huge fishhead curry to blame? Sadly, I found most of the language jokes in the first half of the show to be rather unfunny.

Hmmm, and oh, I felt that they should have done away with Lisa’s dad’s role. I couldn’t see how having him in the story line actually added anything to the whole show. Instead of his long and draggy scenes, I felt that they should have put in the scene where Lisa started learning how to pronounce words correctly and use it to show a growing bond between the tutor and the student.

What made this play not a total waste of our time was the vocal talent that Michelle Quah had. Man, were we mesmerised by the pure poetry and power in her amazing voice. The supporting chorus girls had wonderful voices as well. But the best supporting actress has got to be Sarah Sharum – the lady who played the fun and brazenly sexy role of ‘Mrs. Pearce’. In the hands of a less seasoned actor, that role could have been over-acted and gave the audience heart palpitations of the bad kind. But Sarah played the role so well and in such a tasteful way that I felt like I wanted to rush out and get myself a cute maid’s costume as well. In short, I wished I could act like her!

I didn’t realise that Harith couldn’t sing all that well until he had to sing in a duet with Michelle. Gosh, the gap between the non-singer (Harith) and the professional vocal trainer (cun mommy Michelle) was so apparent that I wondered why they had to put poor Harith through that. Well, at least the man could sing in tune and he gave it all he had, gutsy guy that he was. A lesser man would have chickened out of it.

I guess it was unfair to compare our local production to the hugely successful 1964 movie but I couldn’t help it lar. The effort was commendable but there’s still a long way to go.

We had a wonderful supper afterwards at Nailis – an interesting makan place that was nicely built to resemble a fishing village – complete with huts up the trees where you can eat closer to the sky. And on the way back home, we had a listen to the My Fair Lady broadway soundtrack and that reminded us of why we came out in the first place. To support our local arts effort to someday be of international standard fare.

A big-hearted gadget freak and blog reader who wishes to be anonymous has gotten an Ipod Nano last Fri. Since he would be busy this week, he suggested that I have the honour to test drive it. I think he has this hope that I would plunk my money to join the bandwagon. But no, I think I’m strong enough to resist that temptation.

But ooooh yes, I have one whole week, with a cool and chic mp3 player. That was enough to get me drooling.

Nano on my palm

My phone and Nano side by side. Looks about the same size, ya?

Not exactly… This is my thick phone. Notice how fat it makes my hand look.

And this is the super slim Nano. Man, if this is not a geekgirl magnet, I dunno what is!

This thing actually fits in my tightest jeans and still not show much of a bulge. I can bring it anywhere!

I am suddenly possessed with the enthusiasm to go for a jog or walk at Klang Hill. I can imagine the slow mo way I’m jogging with sweet sweet music blaring in my ears and people wondering where on earth did I stash the normally bulky mp3 player. Yeah, the things I do for the sake of research.

Guess that would make a good tagline for Nano ~ The key to a healthier lifestyle.

The sound quality is great. It took me a while to get used to the navigation system e.g. controlling the volume, checking out other nifty features like photo viewing, calendar, contacts and even games (I haven’t figured out how to play Solitaire on Nano yet!). Uploading songs via iTunes is almost a no-brainer, although it was so seamless that I managed to completely wipe out all of the cool songs that were previously painstakingly copied over by the owner. Oooops…

Also unfortunately, the Nano doesn’t play well with my Easy MP3 FM Modulator. The interference was just too horrendous. But I guess it should work better with Belkin Tunecast.

The screen is a wee bit small for viewing photos but should be sufficient to show your friends your latest hunk of the month niece/nephew antics.

I also like the fact that it is sensitive to motion and the backlight lights up whenever I pick it up to see the title of the song that’s currently playing.

Nano comes in 2Gb and 4Gb. The unit I’m testing is a 4Gb one (cost is about RM1.2k). And apparently, there is a shortage of both models, and a 4-week waiting list for the 4Gb model. Colorful casings are not available locally as yet. But my friend mentioned that getting a white Nano would bring out the colors of those housing covers better than a black one. So get a white Nano if you are planning to change cases like clothes.

Ok, I’m done with my review. Now to go play with my new toy!

Updates: A colleague was so impressed with my new toy that he tried it out on his car’s FM tuner and it worked so fine that he’s getting one of his own soon. Wah, I’m turning to be as bad as Tim!

I splurged RM128 (now probably RM68! I’m gonna kill Tim!!!) on a new toy that I didn’t even knew existed until very recently. And I blame Tim for it. Trust him to dangle new gadgets, gizmos and toys to me every now and then like some juicy carrot. Bad influence, your name is Tim .

Anyway, back to my new toy. It’s really the coolest thing ever. Almost everybody that I talked to drooled when I described what it can do. And they asked me to test it out and give them a full report when I’m done. So, here it is – in full color and all.

What is this gizmo anyway?

This universal FM Modulator allows you to play your pen drive (yes, pen drive!!! Woo-hoo!) and any other audio source (Ipods, other mp3 players, CD & DVD players) through your car’s FM tuner. It’s like Belkin tunecast and more!

How do you install it?

If you are using a usb pen drive, you just plug it to the usb connector at the back of the FM modulator. For other devices, you can connect it using the cable provided. After that, plug the other end into your ciggie lighter slot. Tune your FM channel to the channel that you have selected on your FM modulator (it gives you the option of 7 pre-set channels). Even if it’s occupied by any radio station, it still works. And voila, once you hit the correct station and hear the music belting out from your speakers, you are done!

I wasn’t sure if the thing could read my mp3 files stored in the folders of my usb drive, so I placed them all on to the root directory. Updates as at 9 Sept 05: Yes, it can sniff out files located in the subfolders – the clever thing!

How’s the sound quality like?

The quality wasn’t that great, unfortunately. Certain songs sounded rather muffled. I guess it is largely dependent on the quality of the mp3 itself. But being a non-audiophile person, I have no complaints. I can live with average quality music without cringing nor hyperventilating.

Do you like the design of this thingamajic?

Honestly speaking, I found the design to be a little weird. Kinda like a doorknob or something. Also, the front panel controls were a little hard to manoeuvre while driving. You sort of need two fingers gripping the thing to hold it steady if you want to skip or repeat songs. I haven’t checked whether it has any other advanced functions, but I shall have to explore that later and update it here.

Would I recommend it to friends and foes alike?

Heh, yeah! For RM128, I can use my existing usb pen drive as a portable MP3 player. Sure saved me a lot of moolah than getting an Ipod, don’t you think? Besides, even if I do eventually acquire an Ipod, I’ll still need this to connect it to my car speakers.

Before I ripped the package open

Here’s the front portion

And here’s the back where you plug in your usb pen drive

A close-up of the front – Ain’t it a beauty?