I hope you’re having a nice long weekend if you’re somewhere that celebrates Vesak Day, and I good last day of your weekend everywhere else!
Next guest on Before We Get There Podcast
This Thursday I’ll be joined by Joyce Harn, a Malaysian actress known for her roles in movies like Fly By Night and Budak Flat as well as many other projects. She also has done reality show contests, competed in pageants, plays the piano, and trains Judo. We talk about her acting career, what it’s like being on set and vibing with the other actors, how she continued to pursue her childhood dream of acting while giving herself other options for the future, what kind of films she would like to act in and direct in the future, how she got into Judo, and much more. Keep an eye out on your favorite podcast platform to listen to the episode!
What I tried to organize this weekend
My personal email account was about to hit 100k messages, 97,118 to be exact. So I finally decided to do something about it. After getting some suggestions from Gemini on the best way to go about it, I started archiving and deleting emails. And after 3 hours, I’m only down to 64,864, with about 10 of those being new while I was cleaning it up. I’m going to push through and try to finish tonight or tomorrow, but it is definitely a slog. I have a couple of observations so far. Unsurprisingly, the bulk of the junk emails are from companies with offers or updates, often which I may never have purchased something from or only bought one thing a long time ago. But more importantly, the mass deletions/archives that had the most emails were from services I use all the time (LinkedIn was a huge offender). Most of these I haven’t checked in years, because I’m on the app, so emailing me a roundup of interesting posts or notifying me of a like or follow is useless as I’ve already seen it.
What I ate this weekend
Yesterday I finally got to enjoy a meal from Chef and Boxing Champion Davis Ng at Kemuri BBQ, his restaurant in Balistier. I had Davis on the podcast a few months ago and he shared his intersting story of not only being a chef and entrepreneur, but also a professional boxer and current WBC Asia Silver Champion. He went to the CIA and interned in Texas where he learned the art of BBQ and smoking and has brought that back to Singapore, where he combines it with Japanese food to make his excellent fusion dishes. We tried the delicious smoked beef cheek and pulled pork bowls, and even got to try some new steak, bacon, and chimichurri dishes they were testing out. After talking to Davis on the podcast and hearing his story, experiencing his vision in person meant a lot. You can listen to the episode here.
What I read this week
Given how hot it’s been in Singapore, Cool: How Air Conditioning Changed Everything caught my eye. This surprisingly funny book dives into the history of AC and the often bizarre journey of how society was eventually convinced it actually needed this invention. He shared how in the Victorian age it was a sign of class to pretend the summer heat didn’t bother you, so the rich weren’t interested in any kind of automated cooling. The early ice and wind machines, refrigerated beds, and other contraptions that were invented weren’t that helpful, so it was only when really effective aircon was invented that it started to be adopted. It was interesting to learn how this invention has shaped modern life, architecture, and even our daily habits.
That’s all for this week!