I’d never even heard of “lazy hot pot” until recently. I saw a Hong Kong YouTuber called Slime try one on YouTube, and it got me itching to give it a shot. I knew the principle was basically the same as some military ration I’d had before, but curiosity still won and I bought one to check it out.

When I first started watching TESTV, I found it awkward. The concept was solid, but the voice acting was way too affected, way too cringe. After watching enough of it, I don’t know if I just accepted the setup or if they improved, but I got used to it. Now TESTV feels like a breath of fresh air among tech self-media shows. While everyone else is busy flexing, TESTV’s videos keep that cheerful vibe, and honestly they’re the most watchable — you can just treat them like a TV drama… TESTV says themselves they’re not a tech outlet, they just sell hot pot base. So to show support, I bought a pack of the boss’s hot pot base. Today I’m here to talk about hot pot base.

As I keep going on about every day, I’ve been dieting — for almost a year now. Oh wait, today makes it exactly a year. Unluckily enough, on this commemorative day I stopped running. The reason, naturally, is that my legs and feet feel off. On days I can’t run my OCD acts up a bit, but then I figure I’ve been running to lose weight for a year now. The goal failed, sure, but at least I shed the fat — isn’t it about time to call it a wrap? The weight loss is a done deal; all that’s left is figuring out how not to bounce back. The weekend came around and I got a craving. I wanted hot pot, but I was also worried about putting the weight back on. Being the kind of guy who lives parasitically on the internet, I fired up the search engine again… Searching around, digging through every bit of experience I could find, all I got was “keep up good sleep and eating habits, don’t go stuffing yourself just because you lost weight… blah, blah, blah.” Finally I found an answer on Quora: “An occasional binge is no big deal. Once you stop dieting you can relax a little — no need to stay wound so tight.” I let out a long breath. Finally, I could eat hot pot. My mother, who had watched the whole process from the sidelines, said: “So you searched for ages just waiting for that one sentence, huh?” “The other answers aren’t scientific. This guy’s take is comparatively reasonable.” I defended myself. “So because he said what you wanted to hear, you think he’s reasonable?” Yeah… no comeback for that.