To the woman in 5D

To the woman who was sitting in 5D on last night's much-delayed flight from Chicago O'Hare to Springfield IL:

I remember when no cell phone / electronic device use was allowed at all while on the airplane, whether in the air or on the tarmac.

Now, it seems as if the airlines bend over backwards to accommodate customers who insist on being connected at all times, who can't survive without their own music, who can't stand the thought of having quiet time to themselves, etc.

BUT there are specific times when use of such devices are utterly prohibited. Not just to show you who's boss, but for our own safety. Sure, the legendary 1995 incident of a laptop suspected of interfering with a 747's auto-pilot couldn't be replicated, but still... all electronic devices emit radio waves that potentially can interfere with the navigation equipment on board a plane... I'd rather be safe than sorry on this one: wouldn't you?

So when it's time to switch off your electronic devices before takeoff, it's not about the airlines inconveniencing you, it's about the SAFETY of everyone on board!

... and yet there you were, continuing to SMS/email on your BlackBerry even after the plane door had closed, and it was obvious you KNEW you were not supposed to be using the phone because you hid it under your arm as the stewardess made her rounds checking for safety compliance! And when your concerned neighbor finally pointed out that you should have the phone off you mumbled something and put the phone away WITHOUT TURNING IT OFF! How do I know this? Because IT STARTED RINGING... AND YOU ANSWERED THE BLOODY THING AS WE WERE TAXIING FOR TAKEOFF!! WHAT. THE. EFF!! I wouldn't be surprised if the phone was on the whole entire flight.

I was torn between confronting you directly and siccing the stewardess on you. In the end I took the let-it-all-boil-inside path, trusting that the odds were in our favor and that your selfish assininity wouldn't lead to 'complications'. Thankfully we all arrived in one piece, incident-free.

However, I humbly ask that in the future you inform me, somehow, whenever you know of when you'll be making other plane trips somewhere, anywhere... because as far as possible I'll plan my own trips around yours so that I have to share neither plane nor sky with you, ever again.

Like I said before, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

... not that you'd relate to that in any way ...

Yours sincerely,

*lynne naranek*

Images from MS Office clip art

Foody Friday: Dhal Bukhara

It's been a while since my last Foody Friday post! A big hold-up is the fact that my phone and PC tend to not want to communicate with each other via bluetooth, and I have my phone more handy than camera, so for a while now I've had overdue pix sitting in my phone, unable to get sent to the PC.

Yesterday, by some miracle of miracles, I managed to get them all to the PC!

Yesterday also, I experimented for the first time with lentils! After looking around for some recipes (including at this site, thanks to a tweet!), I decided to try my hand at dhal bukhara.

Started off with a bag of the legumes:


Soaked them in water for many hours; they expanded a bit. Rinsed them out, put them in a pot with plenty of water, and let 'em boil until the beans were soft.

Then came the problem. .. The instructions say to mash them. Was that in the pot with plenty of water? Or drain 'em out first? And how on earth does one mash lentil beans, especially when one doesn't have a blender? Arrgh!

I ended up draining and rinsing the now-soft beans in a colander, taking small batches of the beans in a bowl and smushing them as well as I could with a fork, then transferring back to the pot.

Then came the other problem - from the instructions, it seems like there would need to be more liquid in the pot (leading me to believe the previous instructions for mashing the beans were to take place in the pot?), so I dumped a can of beef broth that I happened to have on hand, along with the two cans of diced tomatoes, butter, grated ginger, and heaping tablespoons of minced garlic & chili powder, and brought everything to a boil.



Then I realised that in spite of my smushing efforts, it looked like over half the beans were still intact. Oh well. If there is a next time, I'll be more prepared somehow - maybe a masher should go on the shopping list?

It was also pretty runny - partly because of the added broth, partly because the beans weren't all smushed. So I let the contents of the pot boil down quite a bit.

Once it looked ready, I spooned myself a bowl's worth of the stuff, and added two spoons of half-and-half in place of the "thickened/double/heavy cream whisked until smooth".


I had it without any accompaniments, although it's recommended you eat this with naan or rice. There is certainly room for improvement, and I wouldn't serve it to guests just yet, but I liked it enough for a second helping.

How about you? Have you experimented with lentils before? Do you have a favorite recipe? Tell me, I might just try it out!

p/s: Have you signed up for The Postcard / Link Exchange of 2010 yet? You could also be in the running to receive a Malaysia-themed gift (I've decided on a box of Seri Songket Passion Fruit Tea by Boh, a local tea manufacturer)! Wait no more, sign up now!

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Plane vs bus/train/other options

On Wednesday I indicated that there was more to the cost of air travel than just the ticket. This was prompted in part by a blog post I read recently: in Why I cancelled a subscription to Lonely Planet Magazine blogger Natalie was disappointed that said magazine seemed to overwhelmingly support air travel to the point that alternative modes of travel were rarely, if ever, addressed, and therefore wasn't helping in reducing the negative environmental impact of travel.


I like her principled stand, especially considering the UK has connections to the mainland other than by air. I've yet to take the chunnel, opened in 1994, but thanks to is existence, one could go from London to Paris in as little as 2h 15m. The Man in Seat Sixty-One even offers ferry/train suggestions for folks in the UK who want to make their way to Europe but without having to go via London or by air. I also have a vague recollection of perhaps having crossed the channel by ferry, way back when.

Of course, if your destination is further away, then you need to make a decision about how much time you want to spend traveling there and back, versus time you'd be able to spend in the destination itself. This is one of the reasons it's highly unlikely for Kosh to be able to take a trip back to Malaysia with me anytime in the next 5 years or so: he can get one week off at a time, so when you factor in the 4 days total for to/fro travel, that's a measly 3 days he'd get to spend getting used to the humidity and time change, only to have to get right back into that plane. Ugh!

Where am i going with this?

If you recall, my plans this time around include Singapore. An island just south of the tip of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore is easily gotten to by train or bus as well as by air from Kuala Lumpur. I won't be a rush to get from KL to Singapore, so long I get there withina reasonable amount of time is fine with me... and yet the non-air options flitted only briefly across my attention:

Bus? I look back to my bus journeys, from the time I lived on the east coast and needed a cheap trip back to KL, with amazement mixed with horror that I actually did numerous trips without accidents. Such buses are notorious for being poorly maintained and driven in an unsafe manner. Sure, I've heard of the premium air-conditioned coaches that do the KL-S'pore journey safely, but I'm still leery of putting my life in the hands of a Malaysian bus driver.

Train? I've done the KL-S'pore by train once, back in the early 90's. Perhaps it's because we'd gotten the cheapest seats, but oh boy it was a terribly uncomfortable journey made bearable only by the company of my other two pals. On one of the directions, I recall we just hung out in the restaurant car, everyone ordering a drink in succession once the other was done with theirs so that we were legitimately at that table, in order to have some level of comfort. I vaguely remember having a much more comfortable trip by train up to Penang, so it's not like that one trip has colored my perception of Malaysian train travel. I don't recall how one passes through customs & immigration when going by train, though, and didn't feel like finding out just yet.

... as such, I succumbed to the lure of the plane. I'm kicking myself a little, but what's done is done. Perhaps next time I'll remember to include Singapore in my travel options: now that I think about it, I have the impression that a round trip flight via S'pore plus a return train journey to KL might be cheaper than my usual itinerary via KUL. We'll see what the online ticketing sites have to say, whenever it is that I start planning my next Malaysia trip!

What about you? Do you consciously try to reduce/minimise the impact of your travels on the environment? ... And what of the blog post that sparked this off: do you think Natalie was right to cancel her subscription in order to express her dissatisfaction, or do you think she should have stayed a subscriber but then actively lobbied LP for a change in their practices?

Drop me a comment, I'd love to hear from you.

Image credits: plane by goa_s; bus and train by hisks.

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