Big Fluffy Clouds today

perhaps the sky is also feeling happy as its a FRIDAY!!

Did you notice the big fluffy clouds against the deep blue sky this morning? The clouds stand out so white against the blue skies with the sun's rays on them, its just an awesome view staring at them.

no wonder there were so many traffic accidents this morning, perhaps the drivers were also distracted by the clouds like i was?

CK Joi Singapore Wedding II

The couple got it easy in Singapore, the day started only at around 10am for them.... CK sent the car for its "make-over"


Meanwhile, I chauffuered Joi for her bridal make-up & hair-do leisurely at 12pm hee... the bonus was, I get to be the FIRST to see her transformation from her non-make-up self to the bridal outlook which my dearest hair-stylist Jasmine did for her. Jas, specially asked for fresh flowers to be bought for her hair to give it a Fresh look! So thankfully, Ad knows his flowers well, and I got him to do the picking hee.. Wax flowers we got!



then we realised that the traffic was abit heavy (even on a SUNDAY!!!) argh... I had to safely navigate the bride for the make up.... and we reached home around 3pm hee....

see how fresh the couple looked before their tea ceromony...

they were all smiles and grins, with occassional teasing like little children excited about their first day in school. They look exceptionally humourous as they were dressed in their hanbok! hee...

Before the tea ceromony, they offered joss-sticks to our family ancesters, very serious moment.....

notice anyone grinning? ha ha ha ha ha....

With a simple yet meaningful tea ceromony, we have officially urshered Joi into our family...

notice the GRIN again?? ha ha ha ha....

with that, we headed off the the lovely Orchid Garden in Botanical Gardens for their dinner reception, Burkil Hall, here we come!

I took a shortcut and arrived earlier (like by 2 car length) than the bridal car!! hee heh... and we found a super glamourous spot to park our car, YES, we are NOT leaving till the end of the night. (fyi: there's limited parking at the dinning hall, so to be one of the 5 vehicles parked there is a very BIG deal hee...)

We met up with the banquet manager and the F&B "lao da" (aka big brother), introduced ourselves to the sound lady, and quickly receed for powerpoints, drinks to be served to the early guest and set up the reception table. Lots to do considering that we have arrived 20mins before the guest....

*wink*

CK Joi Singapore Wedding I

As a prelude of their Singapore Big Day, I'm going to showcase some of the wedding related pics hee...

here's one traditional one, which most Singaporeans have to stick on their doors for the auspicious day.

However, this one seems abit more elaborated dun you think?

they have been receiving gifts & well wishes from friends and relatives for a while now, and here's some cute ones:

This couple is hand-made in Seoul to symbolise the newly wed couple dressed in korean hanbok! So cute eh? Maybe most koreans are tall people, notice how skinny they are! hee...

then of course, they also receive a couple ornament that wore traditional chinese costume...

notice how cute the boy looks when his bride is about to give him a kiss? Maybe that's what they call Cheeky look! ha ha ha...

have you ever wondered what shoes does the ladies wear with their hanbok?? Wonder no more...

these are hand-made, with very intricate design and superb worksmanship. Joi was encouraged to wear them as normal shoes even! ha ha ha.... see you if can catch her in these one day.

Wanna see the hanbok close up? For different occassion, the hanbok is wore differently... or shall I say with different colors? For the newly wed, the bride should wear RED and the groom Blue. The Bride's family should wear red or pink and the groom's family should wear green. I guess Its a great custom to keep so that you will NEVER get mixed up with the bride and groom's family if you should be put in that awkward situation hee... for the seniors in the family, I'm positive that they have some color coded-dress-code but I have learn that part yet....

someone teach me?? hee...

So after the frenzy of the Seoul wedding, we finaly had a chance to oogle at their lovely hanbok when they wore it once again for the Singapore's wedding tea ceromony to the elderlys...

We got them to pose for us and woah.... check out the details on the cuffs of their hanbok!

PearLyrics

I've been searching for a lyrics finder that is easy to use and can download ALL the lyrics at one go....

now there is a solution!! use PearLyrics. So cool! Now I can karaoke along with my iTunes hee... even has the guitar chords for the songs! So aspiring musicians can easily practise their hearts out!

however, i think it only works on the Mac... ha ha ha... Tombi for the PC users =P

Civic Road Manners Gone Missing

This is a two way road with single lane each, on each side of the road there is a bus stop.

Here's how some bus drivers chose to park daily for a good 30mins or longer before moving off....


Notice that there is a exit on the lower right corner of the picture above? Yes, that is a proper exit from a moderate traffic volume venue, especially in the evenings when tonnes of people comes in to do pick up and drop offs or depart from their respective offices....

Notice how terrible the driver will feel at the critical junction, trying to exit from this side exit onto the main road?


Yup, nothing can be seen at ALL! The view of the roads are totally blocked by the giant bus!

This happens on a daily basis all along the road, and imagine how does one leave that exit decently? Would anyone with some civic-mindedness continue to do that daily??

One day, someone is going to get knocked over by the another giant bus that transverse that road daily....

To Be Six Again

A man was sitting on the edge of the bed, observing his wife turning back and forth, looking at herself in the mirror.

Since her birthday was not far off he asked what she'd like to have for her Birthday.

I'd like to be six again, she replied, still looking in the mirror.

On the morning of her Birthday, he arose early, made her a nice big bowl of Lucky Charms, and then took her to Six Flags theme park.

What a day! He put her on every ride in the park; the Death Slide, the Wall of Fear, the Screaming Monster Roller Coaster, everything there was.

Five hours later they staggered out of the theme park. Her head was reeling and her stomach felt upside down.

He then took her to a McDonald's where he ordered her a Happy Meal with extra fries and a chocolate shake.

Then it was off to a movie, popcorn, a soda pop, and her favorite candy, M&M's.

What a fabulous adventure!

Finally she wobbled home with her husband and collapsed into bed exhausted.

He leaned over his wife with a big smile and lovingly asked, Well Dear, what was it like being six again??

Her eyes slowly opened and her expression suddenly changed.

I meant my dress size, you dumb a@#$!

The moral of the story: Even when a man is listening, he is gonna get it wrong.

Things with Gender

Its Friday again!

Have a good laugh and enjoy your weekend! *wink*

You may not know that many non-living things have a gender. For example:

Ziploc bags are Male. They are male because they hold everything in, but you can see right through them.

Copiers are Female. They are female because once turned off, it takes a while to warm them up again. It's an effective reproductive device if the right buttons are pushed, but can wreak havoc if the wrong buttons are pushed.

Tires are Male because they go bald and are often over-inflated.

Hot Air Balloons are Male because to get them to go anywhere, you have to light a fire under them, and of course, there's the hot air part.

Sponges are Female because they're soft, squeezable and retain water. (loved this one)

The Web Page is Female because it's always getting hit on.

The Subway is Male because it uses the same old lines to pick people up.

The Hourglass is Female because over time, the weight shifts to the bottom.

A Hammer is Male because it hasn't changed much over the last 5000 years, but it's handy to have around.

The Remote Control is Female. Yes, you thought it would be male. But consider this -- it gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know the right buttons to push, he keeps trying.

Do we get uglier as we get more famous?

I'm begining to wonder about the moral and mental state of a person as they get more senior in their field of work.

Two incidents sparked off this chain of discussion round the table...

First:
In my workplace, we have a few entrance and exit points leading to other offices, to minimise confusion, we were advised to lock all the side doors and use only the main entrance. So I have a tendency to question the people who walks in through these side doors (as they can be opened from their side =[) for their purpose and advise them on the appropriate route to take in future.

There is always this group of folks who would turn a deaf ear to my friendly advise and makes my blood boil whenever I see them coming into through the side doors. And they often are the "old foggies" who have been in the organisation much longer than I have.

I believe, regardless of seniority, the basic respect towards another person's work space should be given. Being senior doesnt mean that you can walk around into other's office without notice and without evening giving the simplist explanation. Its not just disruptive to our work but also extremely distrubing! I have to worry about the loss of equipment or our personal items through these side doors. If the "old foggies" do not set good examples of the safe use of the work environment, how would the maintenance guys, the sales guys, the cleaners and God knows who CARE?

Once the habits are established, its tough to reverse it. And I just do my best to try to avoid missing items. I got a "showface" when I tried to question one stranger who was walking through my office as if it was common corridor.

Initially I just asked if I could help him, since he ENTERED my bloody office. Then his steps started to quicken as he made a dash for the next side door. I started to raise my voice (in case he did not hear me the first time, which is NOT possible since he gave me the "HUH?" look). So I inquired his purpose for coming through and he almost broke into a sprint for the door! ha ha ha...(no at that time, i was fuming mad at how easily these people take ANOTHER person's work space for granted)

Then, a head appeared, a senior staff from the adjacent office popped the head into my office and declared that the boy was looking for her. Fine, I AGAIN advised her that the side doors are strictly not for use for safety reasons. However, she gave an interesting reply. She mentioned that the original route to her office was blocked by other officer using that room and hence our office was a shortcut she would advise all those looking for her to use!

Very funny! Because she does not want to disturb another fellow officer in his work, she chose to disturb US! Is that even logical? Or acceptable? What does she take us for?

We coined a term for that behaviour... in english we call it Arrogance. But it doesnt seem to give it the Opmh that it deserves... so we used a mandarin word called "zuai" (3rd sound). That word cannot be more appropriate for the situation.

Next incident comes from our experience in Snow Wolf Lake, we mentioned about the semi-local celebraty that has appeared in all local media before, on the newspapers, he was often consulted for comments in his specialty.

At the end of the show, we had two options of leaving the venue, either walk up a long flight of steps where we came from. Or go downwards and add onto the existing crowds departing. Being lazy folks, we decided to take the downwards route hee... nearer to the carpark also!

We migrated towards the open barrier downwards and spoke to the ursher there about our intention. She was pleasent in reviewing that instructions were given to her to allow the folks from the ground levels to clear first before allowing those from the higher levels (us) to clear. It makes perfect sense to just wait for a short moment to avoid chaos.

Soon the stairway was filled with patrons waiting to exit from the downwards exit.

Then a loud male voice came from behind us:" Don't be ridculous!", before I knew it, I was being pushed to the side by this very same man. He must have bashed through a few people to get to the front of the barrier, with an arm, he shove the ursher aside and walked off!

The poor girl was out of balance and fell backwards down the steps. Luckily she was grabbed by other patrons closer to her and she did not suffer any injuries other than a serious fright.

Can you guess who this person was? He is a medical doctor who specialises in cosmetic surgery and is even nominated for Spirit of Enterprise's top 40 honor roll. How can a person be so rude and obnoxious? Especially someone whose face is pretty well-known?

I took that opportunity to call out to him from the crowd as he swiftly mingled into and told him about the pushing of the ursher. He walked away without turning his head. When Ad questioned his gentlemen behaviour, he turned his head around and glared at us. Nope, he was not apologetic about the disturbance that he caused, neither did he think that he was being RUDE!

so tell me, do we get uglier as humans as we become famous or more senior in work places? I would like to know if its just these two folks or is it a nation-wide syndrome that I should be aware of, I want to know how to prevent myself from being such an ugly person in another 20yrs down the road......

Which Desperate Housewife are you?

Congratulations! You are Lynette Scavo, the
ex-career woman who traded the boardroom for
boredom, mixed with moments of sheer panic as
the mother of four unmanageable kids.


Which Desperate Housewife are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

from PD

The Snow Wolf Lake Experience

Last weekend was the return of the grand tour of the Snow Wolf Lake Musical, by Jackie Chueng, a renown Hong Kong artiste with the first Cantonese musical. Here in Singapore, it has a mandarin twist to it.

We were looking forward to it so much! Because, when it fist came to Singapore, I attended it with my sis (courtesy of Colin's free tix hee...) and we got totally mesmerized by the performance. It was one of my first musical experience, I was so sold onto it that I bought the musical sound track right away and have been humming to it ever since. =D

Yup....after 8years, its finally back! Without hesitation, we rounded up our family and friends who are fans and got the Sat night tickets. hee... *excited*

We were greeted at the entrance by many urshers who were interested in our bottles more than if we had metallic objects on us that can potentially cause serious harm to the musical. The urshers went through all our bags to ensure that we did not bring ANY bottled drinks into the venue. *strange* *scratch head*

Besides having "lockers" (open pigeon holes) to "store" the 50cents plastic bottle drink that you may want to bring home, they also prepared a huge bin to empty out the contents of the bottles for those who wants to throw the bottle away instead.

In another few metres into the Indoor Stadium, there boast a robust shop selling DRINKS! Ah ha.... we wonder what sort of signals the organisers are sending out by their water actions. If we had wanted to do damage to the show, we can still purchase the $1.50 drink in a plastic cup and whack it against the stage. Just that it would cost us MORE $$.

Oh well, we were early and decided to check out the washrooms first hee... for some strange reasons, Ad kept going to the loo.... again and again! More often than Em, the preggie mum hee.... Maybe he was nervous about watching a mandrian musical which he had little knowledge of. He was asking me if he would like the plot of the musical, with my sketchy 8yr memory, I told him what I remembered and he din look like he would quite enjoy it.... hmm....

We were greeted by nice big curtain with lights shining on it to make the print:


The musical started with a loud Bang! And we were all excitedly Screaming!!!! YES, finally.... after 8 yrs....

The musical sounded a way bit too queer for me.... cos this was the first time I'm listening to it in mandarin!! The lyrics and the music do not seem to go hand in hand with the storyline. I must be too used to the cantonese version. I spend the rest of the night being confused by the lyrics that were flashing on both sides as they sang. We were not at all impressed by the lead actress,instead, we preferred Nydia the 2nd lead actress. Some of the other singers had their voices bursting our ear drums and poor Em had to withstand her little baby kicking her in protest for the loud "noise" hee...

During the interval, we spotted a semi-local celebraty...Dr WW the famous or infamous cosmetic surgeon. He was with a younger lady who is also preggie. We all assumed that they were husbands and wives. We grew so proud of ourselves because we got BETTER seats than they did! HA HA HA.... *smug look*

As the performance progressed, we were all engrossed in how lights played an important role in the whole show. Most of the stage setup were in grey... it was the lights that gave them the color and thereby creating the mood and the setting for that scene. Impressive huh?



check out how lightings transformed the whole stage....



cool eh? ;)

Overall, we rated the show OK only, perhaps we were all to tired from the week's worth of running around to fully immerse ourselves in enjoying the performance. Nonetheless, we concluded that there was no other artiste in this current musical era that can or will carry off a musical of this scale other than Jackie Chueng himself.

Jackie, we are so proud of you!
because you made it possible to have a chinse musical worthy of mentioning.

because you made a musical that will etch deeply in our memories, as part of our growing up years.

because you sang so well, holding on to each note so clearly as you did 8yrs ago.

Snow Wolf Lake

SNOW · WOLF · LAKE
- A Chinese Musical Extravaganza by Jacky Cheung

Lead actor: Jacky Cheung
Lead actresses:
1. Yvonne Hsu
2. Nnadia Chan


The eternal love unfolds 8 years ago. This year, the myth continues to conquer the world.


Different from its debut show in Cantonese eight years ago at the Hong Kong Coliseum, this time a brand-new stage design was created by Cheung, who was director and art director for the Mandarin version of Snow Wolf Lake.

A strong entourage of 200 people includes casts, dancers, make-up, bands, orchestras and production team with production cost of over 10 million Singapore dollars!

Catch the spectacular and moving Chinese Musical:
Snow.Wolf.Lake


The Chinese musical extravaganza is a tragic love story about Wolf, who is a poor gardener and in love with Snow, a girl from a rich family, as he commits suicide with his lover when they drown themselves in the Snow Wolf Lake, the place where they first expressed their passions for each other.

Snow.Wolf.Lake has been highly acclaimed as one of the most important Chinese-language musical creations since its debut in 1997. The renowned “God of Songs”, Jackie Cheung gave 43 consecutive performances in Cantonese, which set a box-office record in Hong Kong's musical history and marked the peak of his singing career.

Snow.Wolf.Lake, the Mandarin version musical world tour kicked off last Christmas Eve in Beijing and has been traveling around China's major cities. This September, Snow Wolf Lake will starts touring to countries like Singapore and the United States. The tour will run until February 2006.

Yeah at last!

YES! Finally, I'm getting some decent results from the many many months of hard work....



but whether this decent looking photo will serve some useful purpose is yet to be known....
*pray for me*

Everything iPod

Everything iPod: for those iPod fans... *drool*

Happy Chuseok

Seoul Wedding II

yeah, here's the 2nd installment of CK & Joi's Seoul wedding for the traditional part!

After all the photo taking with friends and family, the couple barely had time to go around to the different tables and they have to zip into their new Hanbok! (the traditional Korean costume, its multi-layer okay... dun play play)


Dun they look so cute?? hee...

Soon, in the whisk of an hour, most of the guest have left, leaving behind close relatives and family to watch the slideshow prepared from their childhood photo collection....(hopefully will get the chance to display those online as well...in the future k)

The newly wed have to serve tea to the groom's parents, elderlys and family! HEH, this is the fun part. In a separate room, a table was set up with two magnificent looking "gifts"? I really dunno what to call them....maybe you can help me.


This one, if you can see closely, its made up of a cooked chicken seated on top of a whole tray of red dates, chestnuts. Its brightly decorated with flowers and ribbons to beautify its presence. I remember in most chinese weddings, having a chicken is a must! In the olden days (at least about 20yrs ago, when my cousins got married, they have to bring a LIVE chicken into the house and let the chicken fly over the newly wed's bed!) So I guess, this version of the chicken looks more appealing and delicious? hee... yes, the groom's family is suppose to eat it, but as we do not have cooking facilities in the hotel, it was tough for us to eat it in Seoul, so Joi's parents have graciously accepted our small gift....

Next to the beautified chicken, there is a tray of goodies....

On this tray, there are about 8 types of goodies, sweets, plums.... pretty much like our 8-treasure box during chinese new year. Interestingly, after being served their drinks, the elderly, parents are given one piece of goodies from this tray (to like sweeten their mouth to be nicer to their daughter-in-law)?? This seems pretty similar to what we see on tv dramas where the act of giving something sweet to an elderly will help in "scoring points".

Infront of the chicken and goodies tray, was a smaller, shorter tray with a set of "tea"pot and "tea" cups in GOLD!

Why did I give the emphasis to the word "tea"? Because, it wasn't tea that was being served, it was neat alcohol! Something like vodka! So everyone was served like 2 shots of 14% alcohol by the couple... definitely set the mood to be on the High side hee... (we only found out when our parents, drank from the cups, you can imagine how shock they were when they down the whole cup of drink only to find out that it wasn't tea ha ha ha)

Guess what the couple was dressed like for this ceromony?? hee....

Cannot get more traditional than this lor!
CK with his Imperial Court Official attire and Joi with her two red cheeks.... *cheeky grin*

(for those who watches K dramas with wedding scenes... this attire definitely looked like they came straight from shooting a film ha ha ha)

The couple has to bow the FULL bow (ie, standing with their hands infront of their faces, bend down on their knees and go all the way down with their heads on the floor and up again) to each parent and then to a half bow before they seat down to serve "tea" to the groom's parents. Then they are fed with something sweet from the goodies tray and the parents are to give the newly wed some parent advices for their marriage.... how to?? By now, either they are getting high from the alcohol or their dentures are kinda stuck from munching on the super sticky goodies! ha ha ha... so the talking talking part from the parents are short and sweet! Good strategy!
And parents would willingly, happily give them both a BIG angpo!

Next in line was grandma, Gu Por, who followed the same treatment from the newly wed and she was smarter not to finish her "tea" and take a tiny bite of the goodies hee...

Heh... then it was MY turn!! Actually with my eldest bro and sis also lah... since CK was elder to me.... he cannot bow to me!! So while both my eldest bro and sis were seated during the bowing, I had to follow CK & Joi's bowing timing and bowing actions and bow to them!!! So funny....
(initially, I thought that I would get their full bow... so you can hear me saying how "cheated" I was in the video ha ha ha)

So while CK & Joi poured the drinks for my elder siblings, I have to hold my own cup! Another interesting observation...

Then, we got fed by Joi from the goodies tray! heh... almost like a bribe from Joi to fill our mouths with sweets to get a good impression... eh? So much like the ancient traditions!! ( well, at least I get fed!)

Then the couple get to do their couple drink.... hehe.... CK had to feed Joi with a red date and he gets to take a bite off from her mouth... c what happens when he tries too hard...

he got a little nudge from his bride! hee...

This segment is like to tell the groom to take good care of his wife.... in their marriage, he is like the bread winner, he has to take on all the responsibilities... so he also have to piggy back his new bride!

See how happy they look!

We were so curious at their outfits that we even took pictures from their backs! hee..



Hope you had fun reading about their wedding... I know we had fun being part of it! *wink*

Against Rape?

Female condom, new device to deter men from raping women. Cool, but is it also cruel?

thanks pd for the info! *wink*

Marital Statistics

A few nights ago, ignited by a tv program on marriage and divorce, we started to do a count of those around us who are separated/divorce vs still married.

I'm always very amazed/frustrated at how quickly a person can deny another person's contribution towards a marriage when things go wrong. It always takes two hands to clap. A husband alone cannot break up a whole marriage simply because he is a workaholic or he goes out womanising. Isnt the wife suppose to be appreciative of her husband's hard work to provide for the family? Working life today is not as simple as it used to be, everyone has to fight for their own survival in the office, a small error can mean black mark against your records which can potentially be used against you during staff evaluation/staff trimming exercises. If a husband is dedicated at work, as long as he is honest and willing to share his working life with the wife, isnt the wife suppose to be supportive and rejoice in his dedication? Can it be a valid reason for causing the rife in the marriage?

If the husband is found to be womanising, besides his inability to stay monogamous, isnt the wife also partly responsible to drive him into the arms of other women?? Or can the wife just convieniently blame everything onto the husband?

Likewise, if the wife has a "change" of heart, doesnt she know that there is NO perfect men/husband out there? When she decide to marry this man, she should have all her doubts/queries about him, his bad habits, his secrets/desires all sorted out? Why wait after the perfect wedding to dig out all the dirt and spill them out as an excuse for displeasure??

Sometimes I wonder if the couple with issues ever wonder the effort all those around them made for them. Say for example, for their wedding, friends, relatives and family members are bound to attend/help out/ make it a memorable day for them. Have the couple ever considered how shock or heart-broken these people would be? How much time/effort/$$ they have spent on this couple? I've helped out in countless weddings and can definitely say that to make a wedding a memorable one, the amount of efforts that friends chip in are unimaginable. At times, just a word of thanks was given and that was all. Is it fair I wonder... for someone to take a whole day sometimes even two days off their free time to come and make this day a special one for you and then one can simply announce that they are not suited for each other. bye bye....

Hopefully, more couples who are facing issues, are willing to seek the right avenues for help, guidance to resolve their issues. I believe these jobs are better done by professionals who have been trained for years to do it and not allow unGodly influences to intervene.

Amazingly, we have a figure of 7 out of 30, 7 couples split up vs 23 who are still happily married (or we think...).

With that figure, we felt more assured that our world is not as warp as we thought.... =D

the 7s

seven things that scare me

ghost/spirits/horror movies
i'll lose all my teeth
falling off a cliff
crashing into another car at high speed
dealing with ugly people (not just physical ugliness but moral ugliness too)
losing good friends
not being able to love or being love

seven characters that i like most

God
Ad
Peanuts! (the comics lah)
Lee Dong Gun (K star)
Mu Lan (the cartoon about a little girl going to battle on her dad's behalf)
Andy Lau (HK singer/actor)
Josh (baby sunshine who lights up everyone around him)

seven things i like most

sleep!
listen to nice music, sip tea and read a good book by a nice window with tonnes of passerbys
a lazy afternoon of doing nothing
mahjong with friends
laughing at silly jokes
snuggling in bed on a rainy day
the smell of freshly cut grass

seven important things in my room

radio
tv
my comb
my bolster
my blanket
my bedtime book
my peanuts collections

seven random facts about me

i can laugh and cry simultaneously at a drama
i can get so pissed at someone/something that i start to shiver
i can daydream so much that i even dream about the same thing at night
i love mac nut ice cream from haagen darz
i think i'm FAT
i cant get enough of the tv
i cant play fighting games on the xbox for nuts!

seven things to do before i die

convert as many pple as i can to Mac culture and to know God
travel to experience the different cultures around the globe
buy my audi tt coupe
have a dog
play golf
take part in some silly contest (heritage hunt not counted)
sky dive

seven things that i can do

make yummy cookies (if i can find the receipe)
gobble down a whole packet of prawn crackers infront of the tv
dash for the bus that I want to get on
magic clean and mop the whole house, wash toilet, bathroom under 20mins (with Ad's help hee)
iron for 4hrs straight
think of the wrong reasons why an experiment wont work
blog and blog and blog

seven things i cant do

take excellent photos...
run a marathon
tell someone to piss off in their face
get skinny again
remember faces and names
sail a boat
sing

seven things i say the most

wah
shit
oh man
i'm sleepy
i dun wanna grow up
WA WA
*wink*

seven people who will have to do this??

Ad
pd
Steph
Eve&Ben
Otterman
Joanne
Jas

Ad did it again!

yup... he managed to take excellent pic of our fish tank with his super duper high end camera whilst I usually wrestle with the fish using my hp camera... *blah*

interestingly he also clocked in the 150th blog posting with that blog!! Good work darling!

Sadly, Ah Hock has gotton his tail fin badly bitten, so badly that he has chosen to hide away most of the time. It happened while we were out on sat evening, not sure who is the culprit, but we sure hope that their "fish fight" will end here, with one causalty....

Our fish tank...

I know Jen's given a preview already but now it's time to finally share everything about our fish tank. It's really taken so much time over a good one year to finally learn how to take care of the fishes. It's really not easy when it comes to a marine tank. Why? There are so many more indicators and the fishes and corals are all very sensitive. After all the reading and testing, here they are after 3 weeks in the tank!

Introducing our Purple Lobster - LOBBIE! He's a real fast one. He hides snuggly in the dark and comes out fast for food. He moves with super duper agility and it's amazing looking at his tail with 2 dots that stand out like eyes to deter predators.



Then there's our full tank here, with a BIG anemone that I feed consistently brine shrimps and it whallops the whole piece in a matter of seconds. (that is as I wave off the resident clone fishes that may insist that the shrimps are for them instead), 2 chromis, 2 clown fishes, 3 hermit crabs (thanks to S and J for getting them!) and our AH HOCK - the spotted barramundi!









It's such a joy watching them swimming and especially during feeding! :) And when it's time to visit Jes jie or Eugi Jie, it's a different experience with the Aros! Shawn, when is it gonna be your turn with the ARO!?

We went to Pasir Ris today and got a "change of clothes" for HERMIE... got him 2. Dropped it in and it took him a mere 10 mins to start checking them out. And guess what?! He's now changing from one to another to find out which one fits him best! Just saw how he changed from one to another and it's so cool!

Philips Sales

Yeah, its here again! We missed it the last time because we were too lazy to get out of bed. But this time round, our friend Em got a new house to set up so got more motivation to go there and check out its sales hee...

Woah... super crowded boy! Nice big huge tents with clear labels and posters hang way above the heads to indicate the items on display there. Good work!



And they even have a medical station!



However, we realised that their payment and item collection system can be improved. How?? Am not sure yet, but we can debate about it...

You see, when you decide to buy an item, you collect a stack of carbon copy forms with the item name and price for it, after touring the whole entire sales venue, you accumulate all your forms and go to the payment tent. After queuing up to pay for your item, you head BACK to where you saw the item initially, where they issued you the forms for payment to do the pick up. If you wan them to deliver to your house, you've got to go to another tent to make the arrangements. Abit of too much extra leg work for me.... Hope it can improved in the next sales... because its such a huge torture to go walking back and forth the different tents under the extremely HOT sun.

(but they were giving out FREE green apples hee... it was for a demo on their power jucier-like machiner to get a free cup of juice, but it was much more crunchier to EAT the apple then to crash through the crowd to get a cup of juice from the free apple)

Nonetheless, the delivery guys worked really fast, within 2hours after we paid, their 29' TV was delivered and all fixed up ready for use. Really cool eh?

Men Pole Dancing!

Yahoo!!! A first in Singapore!! Because it happened in a Shopping Center on a weekday NIGHT!!! Yahoo....

When I first heard the idea, I cannot stop laughing at how funny it sounds. Although pole dancing is nothing new, it is usually a performance by female dancers who try to be seductive and lure the men to the unimaginables...

In this case, Century Square boldly declared friday night to be a ladies ONLY night and have a whole night of entertainment for females ONLY. The men were given to a treat as well, they can either get a free beer and watch a live female band perform or watch a free movie in the theatre. Quite a cool idea I thought.

So we (Ad and I) went for it! hee... no harm right?? *wink* *wink*

After circling the roads for a while, we finally found a car park entrance, only to realise that we've been fooled to go into the Tampines Mall car park instead! *blah*

Nevermind, we can just walk over to CS... so we walked, as we past one of its entrance, we saw a few angry men arguing with the security officers and also policemen! Woah, they do look furious! For not being able to enter a building which their wives or girlfriends will be treated like princess.... strange people I thought, its a new experience! Embrace it lah! Why fight the fun??

So we headed out to claim a free movie ticket for Ad hee... and he had to dash off for the movie screening has started.... no chance for him to give me a list of to-dos and NOT-to-dos... hee... Heng ah!

Inside, I met one of the brains behind the pole dancing men... and noticed alot of semi-naked men walking bare-footed in full body paint. Some of them were pretty nicely painted even.... but I'm so afraid that if they were too close to me, some of their paints would rub off me hee...

Okies, back to the central theme... the POLE DANCERS!!!

Class 95's Morning Express DJs, Flying Dutchman and Glen Ong were the MCs of the night and they were building up a strong audience for the pole dancing event. They got the floor really packed right infront of the stage... like right SMACK infront of the stage where the dancers can potentially be felt... ahh....


Check out the crowd from the top even hee... that was how popular the event was.


When the 3 men first came out.... they looked so so only lah. For a while, I was ready to leave and go do some shopping, but the MCs were giving so much juicy jokes about the event that I cannot help but stayed for it. The dancers grew more affectionate with their dancing with time and the crowd got more and more rowdy and daring with them as well!



Then they go topless....


And this guy was the HOT fav!!!! Caused tonnes of women to SCREAM!!!


It was so much fun watching the shy Singaporean crowd inch closer to the dancing men hee... especially the aunties that were trying to get themselves camouflaged amongst the younger girls. Initially they were full of self restrain... slowly, they start to cheer, clap, wave their hands in the air and then... start taking out their handphones to take photos of the dancers! Even movie clips!! ha ha ha....
This auntie was checking the movie that she just took to access if she needs to take it again....


Overall, I had great fun, good clean fun, a good laughter because of good crowd management through the MCs and definitely a memorable one for the aunties who now have photos/movies of semi-naked sweaty men doing pole dancing in their hps. HA HA HA

its Friday!

yeah! happy that its friday again!!

juz saw someone with the Tee that says "Thank God its Friday!"

so cool that someone else is also rejoicing because its Friday! Yahoo!

Beware of Fakers on Blogs

Recently came across a frens' blog and read the comments from an annoynamous reader complimenting how great my friend's blog was.

Then this fella indicated that he/she has their own site too! guess what site it was?

I'm not even sure how credible this site is..... Beware of those who visit your sites pple!!

The Wedding I!

CK & Joi's Seoul Wedding comes in two parts.

First part consists of the sit-down lunch gathering which kick starts with a table full of goodies to munch before the main course is being served.

There are bottle openers next to the bottled drinks for the guest to DIY. Interesting service.

Guest sits promptly and starts their mingling while the bride and groom snaps some behind the scenes shots in a dedicated room where the bride sits like a queen and all those who wants to catch a photo with her, just flock to her throne. Hee


Check out how smart CK looked in his tuxedo...


When all the guests are seated (pretty much like our Singaporean weddings, except that Koreans are ON time!), the groom strolls into the ballroom on his own. Followed by his bride with the accompliment of her daddy. Then the bride is handed over to the groom....

Here's CK's parents who gets front row seats!


They move up towards a podium where a senior to both the bride and groom will address them, sharing with him his marital experiences and give them his guidance. In summary, they were told to always trust each other, respect each other and I cannot remember the last point... (Joi Help!).

Can you see how LLOOONNNNGGG the gown was?? Hmm... so pretty!!

After the speech, the couple leaves the ballroom with thunderous clapping and snowy effects...


Yummy western food is served, by now, all guests are starved and cannot help but to munch happily away to the food. A slide show of both CK & Joi's lives were also "telecast" during this time. Thanks to ME hee... and of course Nicky (my PB), we downloaded their pictures into iPhoto, chose a korean song and let it loop. The guests all enjoyed it tremendously, especially when they caught sight of how cheeky CK looked when he was younger....

They then proceed to cut the cake (pretty much like what we see here in Singapore, except that, as the fake cake is being cut, alot of glittery lights is turned on to add to the festive mood). They also have the champagne pouring moment.... The bride had to stand on a stool provided to ensure that the photo-moment is captured perfectly....


The couple lighted a chain of candles arranged in a spiral upwards connected by a wick which ends at a big candle in the centre. I liked this the best. I think it signifies the different stages of life that each couple has to go through as they age and may the light reminds them of each other. (For our catholic wedding, the bride and groom each holds a single candle, obtains the light from the church's Easter candle and lights up our maritial candle, this candle holds a special meaning for us, like most baptismal candles, we are to light it during tough patches in our marriage and also good times to give thanks...)




Photo-taking time!! The couple takes photos with the senior, family, friends and all who attends the session.

Then its tekkan time!! HA HA HA.... I thought that he can get away without the "jie mei" at the door when he recieves the bride part... too bad for him, CK has to knock it down for his lovely bride hee...

Amazing Race 8!

this time its family version! Cool!

sorry folks, Wednesday nites are reserved for the Amazing Race kakis only from the 27th onwards! HA ha ha....

A prayer for all

Came across this prayer and thought that it is very apt.

"In Jesus' Name, I make a fresh and strong commitment today to live the life of love, to let the tenderness of God flow through me and heal the wounded hearts of those I meet.

"Father, teach me to love even when things go wrong. To be patient and kind when the children are underfoot. To overlook the spiteful words of an angry spouse. To rejoice when someone at the office gets the raise that I thought I needed. Teach me to talk in love, to lay gossip quietly aside and to take up words of grace instead.

"Lord, Your Word says that Your love is already inside me...that it has been shed abroad in my heart. So today, I resolve to remove every obstacle that would keep that love from flowing freely into the lives of others. I put resentments behind me, and I forgive all those who've done me wrong.

"In the days ahead, cause me to increase and excel and overflow with Your love. Cause me to be what this world needs most of all...a living example of love. Amen."

Maybe today will be a day to open our hearts to listen to God's words and follow His ways. Not what we want nor what we desire....

On the way Home...

In the last ditch efforts to find those gorgeous K hunks which I was assigned to find by my single gal friends....

I had to fake it...

sorry gals....


I dun even know what drama this was, hee... you can see that my little niece wasnt very cooperative for the shot! (but my little nephew was! he's quite a good boy for the trip, really proud of him!)

then my mum and my niece decide to rest at a photo spot...


on the plane, the newly wed were pleasantly surprised with a congratulatory cake with cocktails. Thank You SIA! I'm sure we'll remember this ride for a long time to come!


for tv deprived kids, you can imagine how glued to the mini 4' LCD screen on the plane the little two rascals are:

found this really cute as both of them looked like big shots in their over-sized seats hee....

More Snippets of Seoul!

Previously, I was tellinng you about my Seoul Adventure, heres MORE!

This one, I'm going to concentrate on the interesting shops that I see on one of the more yuppy streets, cant remember what name it was. =p

here's an equivalent of 7-11 or Cheers:


one of the colorful shop signage that I cannot resist snapping:


here's an elderly man by the street selling traditional pancakes pressed with simple heart or bear shapes in the center using a metal stencil:


I din know that there was such a thing as BMW lifestyle shop....


it even has mini models of their life size cars, price starts at about S$1000!


Next is a K fetish with the famous no-mouth cat, yes Hello Kitty. You've guess it right.


What my little nephew did not know about this shop is that everything inside is deadly EXpensive! So when he saw a packet of color pens, he was trying to convince us (me and his mother) that he really needed the color pens. We both knew that he does not Need it, but rather Want it. Being 6yrs old, he cannot resist not having this new color pens. Hee.... So being the evil aunty.... I reminded him that he was given 100won by his uncle. (S$1=550won, so his 100won is merely 20cents Ha ha ha) I told him that if he can find anything, simply ANYTHING that cost 100won, he can buy it!

woah, that put the little boy through a good hunt around the shop, the closest he got to was an item that has 9100! He saw the 100 pricing and was delighted for a while until he noticed the faded 9 infront hee... Yah lah, I knew I was being mean, on one hand, it was to give him something to "aim" for while shopping with us. The other reason was for him to learn the difference in value of different currency! (So was for good intentions lah...)

But that boy, left the shop feeling so disappointed and gave a a whole long list of reasons why he should HAVE those color pens for the next hour. I don't know which was worse.... to buy the pens for him or to listen to his "reasons" for over an hour. *sigh*

So I bet he'll remember the front of the shop for a long time to come... as the shop that has nice color pens which he did not have...


Then we saw something that reminds us how doggie friendly this town is:


Lastly, cannot resist this picture of a shop named like a book that describes a lady who cannot resist shopping! hee...

Wish I can Understand....

the lyrics of the Korean songs that I'm listening to.

Yeah, although its really sweet to hear LDG's voice, its not just he's cute! but also the song sounds pretty moving, its sad that I do not understand the contents of the song....

hmm... got to find out where to download the translated lyrics!!

anyone??

Mess is back in the study!

Ha ha ha.... it took us about 2months to put some mess back into our study!

About 2months back, we were celebrating the new lease of life in our study as we bought some new furniture and reorganised the whole room.

Check out its current state!



and on the close up...



but the rest of the room is good lah... *wink* *wink*
like you would believe me right?? ha ha ha....

Our Survivors!

Introducing our little members at home who survived a mini disaster....

First our double "snipper" mini lobster, he's a slim dude who is good at hiding inbetween tiny creeks, almost gave me a fright once when I thought he was dead with a stretched out body. He enjoys coming out into the open during the afternoons and feeding times, otherwise, he usually work behind the scenes without our knowledge. Quite a shy guy I suppose.


Next in the shell family is our red hermie, he is so cute! carrying that fancy shell around his back, crawling from one end of the tank to the other, feeding promptly on our sandy bottom. He enjoys churning out sand, gravel out of his mouth in search of his algea food. He even cleans the sides of our algae infested tank with his tiny claws. Hence the funny "art work of algea" left behind.

pardon me for the blurry images, they are too active lah. caught them during feeding time, so all very excited. hee... Best part about this red hermie is that he's got two followers. We've got two smaller hermits in the tank, occasionally they'll follow red hermie around the tank in search of hidden treasures. So cute!

One of our biggest challenge and pride in the tank is Nemos! Yah, you wonder why they would be a challenge... afterall, just fish right? But they require a home different from other marine life. They grow synergistically with sea anemones. Anemones has naturally growing stings on them which when the clown fish (aka nemos) live closely with them, rubs off some of these sting on their body and use it for their defence.


We previously tried to keep a sea anemone as well, but it did not manage to find a good anchor point and sort of died from starvation. Recently we found out that they actually have a mouth and EAT with it! All we have to do is to put their food at their mouth part! So cool right?? And it really does wallop half a piece of frozen fish food all on its own!

Feeding times are wed and sun! Come and join us?? *wink *wink*

Finally, we have found an interesting behaviour of our Ah Hock, he enjoys balancing on his fins. Maybe he's a lazy fish who doesnt like to waste energy on finning to gain steady bouyancy. So here's a shot of him on one of his "side stand".

if only he knew how comical he looks ha ha ha!

Ligation gave me a headache

its been almost 6weeks for now.... we've been trying out different approaches to move onto the my next phrase of research. We hit a few high walls already. Currently, my boss seems to be banking all our efforts onto this ONE particular series of techniques. Despite repeatedly failing to arrive at a decent conclusion, he finds condolences at the fact that we're "repeating" the protocol to refine our skills. Even though we have absolutely NO progress from week ONE.

After working around 30over sets of samples and repetition, I've kinda concluded that my biggest challenge is in Ligation. That is to physically "stick" two ends of DNA strands together. It seems like an impossible task to STICK genomic DNA to synthetic DNA. Does DNA also practise "racism"?

Maybe its the lousy ligase (enzyme) that I'm using, someone was telling me that Promega's stuff has poor QC, I guess if I can lay my hands on other ligase and maybe even some new polymerase (another enzyme) then I'll be able to verify that statement.

And until that time comes, everyday is a repetition of protocol on some new samples by some strange reason or logic is suppose to work with more practise.... headache!

Or is this God's way of telling me to give up? hee... pray for me brothers n sisters... I'll need any kind of divine interventions here....

Mini Home Disaster

When Ad returned home from his overseas trip in the early evening, he discovered that our bedroom was semi-flooded!

Yes, semi-flooded! with salt water from our marine fish tank :(

For marine tanks, we need to remove the surface contaminants using a surface skimmer. So this gadget will pump water into a column, creating a mini-tornado effect and churn out lots of bubbles which traps those surface contaminants. Ad asked his marine fish buddies and found out that the skimmer is suppose to be filled up with greenish grimmy dirt after a while.

So after 2days of having 5 fish, 3 crabs and 1 lobster in the tank, the surface skimmer still appears clean, he pumped up the water pump to churn out even more bubbles in the aim of making the tank ultra clean.

So when the room was flooded, we guessed that the pump might have overworked and caused a huge tornado of water to flood the skimmer (container) therefore flooding our bedroom.

I had hidden all my snoopy puzzles under the bed.... they got wet! (thank God that I was pretty kiasu when I kept them under the bed, I double-wrapped them with good quality swedish plastic bags - from ikea hee... also because they were the biggest bags that I can at home).

Our bed frame closest to the tank also got soaked in salt water and is showing some signs of stress... eeks. If one day, u find me sleeping on the floor, u know why....

so I rushed home from school, picked up my Ad (who has spent more than 1 hour cleaning up the mess and re-mopping the bedroom floor zillion of times to get ride of the salinity) and zoomed off to a marine fish shop to get more sea water for our fishy.... Lucky for our fishy, the tank still had slightly less than half a tank of water. So they all survived!

YIPEE!

At night, after 5 rounds of mopping, the bedroom floor still feels quesy.... and the seams are all WET! *sad* *sad*

In the morning, we can see salt crystals along the seams of my parquet floor =(

so after another 2 rounds of mopping, finally the floor feels normal again. Heng ah!