"It don't matter if you're black or white"

Although I would imagine that the cover which lists Neil Gaiman's name first would be black, in line with his all-black wardrobe.


The 1991 edition, which is the one I have, has a technicolour, action-packed movie-style-poster sort of cover. Were things always like this back then?

If there is one thing I would like to thank Terry Pratchett for, other than the pleasures of Discworld, it is for introducing me to Neil Gaiman through this book.

My mother banned me from reading comics when I was a kid, she felt that I should read "proper books", ie publications that had proper sentences running into paragraphs instead of coming out of balloons from mouths.

That's why I never got into Marvel and DC superheroes, and also couldn't care less when years later, they emerged on film.

By missing out on comics entirely when I was a kid, I also missed out on graphic novels when I was much older. I made good on this much later in life. But I'm still left with an impairment when it comes to comics. I still like Gaiman more for his books than his graphic novels. And you can blame my mother for this.

Virgin win

Funny the World honoured me with the Premio Dardos Award. It was April Fool's Day but it wasn't a joke.

My very first Internet award. Thank you very much. Here's more about it:

Premio Dardos means "prize darts" in Italian and is awarded for recognition of cultural, ethical, literary and personal values in the form of creative and original writing. The rules are:
1. Accept the award by pasting the graphic on your blog along with the name of the person who granted the award and a link to his/her blog.
2. Pass the award to another 15 blogs that are worthy of acknowledgment, remembering to contact each so they know they have been selected.

I'm ashamed to say that I don't follow enough blogs to name 15 to confer the award on. Does that mean I'll have to return it?

I'm giving the Premio Dardos Award to some of the blogs that I follow, but excluding the so-high-volume-that-we-have-to-close-comments and we-get-money-from-doing-this ones:
Milly's Muse
Compaunmeri
The Cats Whiskers
e-hung

It's made from a dead tree

No real reason for uploading a picture of something as commonplace as a bus ticket except that I haven't actually had to buy a bus ticket in years, ever since the introduction of the smartcard for use on buses and trains.

I had to buy a bus ticket yesterday because there wasn't enough value left in my fare card for the bus trip and had to pay cash to the bus driver who issued me a bus ticket for my ride.

An actual bus ticket. Made from paper. Part of a dead tree. Maybe bus tickets aren't really so commonplace after all. Was it so long ago when buses had conductors whose job it was to collect bus fares in cash and issue you a ticket for having paid? The ticket had all the different fares printed on it, and the conductor carried a hole puncher which he used to punch out the corresponding fare on the ticket.

There you go, the newly mid-middle-aged person is reminiscing already.

Over the hump of the hill

I'm 45 today. There's no denying it. Even my knees remind me daily. I'm stuck squarely in middle age. I used to be able to skirt round it by saying I'm only in my early 40s. Now I'm in my mid-40s. Ack.

I thought I'd console myself with a grand tuck-in. The Shangri-La Hotel has a brilliant promotion called Flash Your Age where, if you and a party of up to 8 people eat at any of their outlets on your actual birthday, you'd get a discount of exactly how old you are. So a 45-year-old would get 45% off her bill. By that accounting, I wonder if a 100-year-old would get to eat for free. And would they pay a 101-year-old for coming?

I called to make a reservation a whole week ahead -- which is about as far as I can plan anything. To my consternation, I was politely, almost sorrowfully, told that the allotment for the promotion on my birthday was already taken up.

I wasn't told what the allotment was. I hope it wasn't just a handful of people. Either that or a hell of a lot of people share my birthday. Well, happy birthday to you, whoever you are, you forward-thinking advance-planning buggers.

Kill 'em all

It has been described as the most destructive creature -- it eats almost anything; it kills native wildife; it is a prolific breeder that takes over native habitat; and it spreads disease.

And that's why, on Toad Day Out, some 24 hours after respecting Earth Hour, thousands of cane toads were killed in Australia.

If they were exterminated for the above reasons, then homo sapiens ought to worry. They're equally guilty of the above.

Sheepses

I've got a birthday coming up next week, and this is my pre-birthday present from L. His reasoning is that when we last celebrated his birthday, it was among sheep in the English countryside. So he would find me sheep for my birthday too. I think my sheep are cuter.

The lights are on

I'm bad, nasty and mean-spirited, as horrid as a kitten killer. I didn't turn my lights off for an hour during Earth Hour.

In Singapore, the commercial buildings and hotels downtown observed the practice. It would be bad PR not to. So they turned off their facade lights and "non-essential" lighting, according to a press release I saw.

My kitten killer instincts tell me that if these lights were "non-essential", then shouldn't they be turned off all the time and not just one hour every year?

I thought if I really wanted to reduce my carbon footprint and save the Earth, I shouldn't stop at turning off the lights, I should turn off the electricity. But I didn't want to miss The Clone Wars on TV, which fell within that hour.

Also, we had got home shortly before 8.30pm, the switch-off time, with groceries and needed the lights on to see our way through putting the food away in the fridge and also hanging up the laundry which L had started before leaving the house. I figured that since I had already consumed so much electricity in storing my food and washing my clothes, I might as well use some more so that I can see what I'm doing with my food and my clothes.

I found out about Earth Hour and the one-hour turn-off at 8.30pm on March 28 from billboard ads I saw at the bus stops when I was on the bus to work. These are giant posters mounted onto a class case which is lighted up from within by fluorescent tubes, so that the ads are visible, even at night.

And I bet you they weren't turned off at Earth Hour.

I should have gone back to the bus stop and taken a picture. The Earth Hour website invites people to send pictures of what they did during the turn-off. Kitten killer would have loved to send them a picture of their ad, lighted up brightly, from 8.30pm to 9.30pm on March 28.

Good golly, Bolly

Someone in another division of my company was looking for people to fill a Bollywood dance class, so I decided why not? I like bopping around to dance music, and this sounded like a fun thing to do. Besides, I figured that taking yoga classes had given me some body control, and plus a childhood of ballet classes, I could follow choreography.

How wrong I was. Body control in yoga class is balancing on a poise. Classical ballet choreography does not move at 100 beats a minute. Bopping around to music turned up loud on the stereo is done with no regard to moving in a sequence.

There were eight counts to the bar, there was a move for every single beat. We were constantly moving -- twirling, spinning, jumping, turning, gyrating, shaking -- and you had to do it all in order.

It was good exercise, there was no doubt. But fun? Not when you had to memorise moves that go at breakneck speed.

Honestly, within 10 minutes of the one-hour class, I was willing to give up the $80 I had paid for 8 classes over 8 weeks as a write-off.

When I got back to my desk, an Indian colleague (who bought us treats to celebrate the day Slumdog Millionaire won 8 Oscars) raised an enquiring eyebrow.

"Jai Ho, my ass," I muttered in a weak response before falling into my seat.

I swear I will never scoff at a Bollywood dance sequence again. And they do it without air-conditioning, out among coconut trees and up hills and down dales.

Royal snit

The groomer came yesterday when I was at work. When I got home, I knew Queeni wasn't happy about things when I received only a one-dog slobber salute. HRH was in our bed, under the covers with the air-conditioning on, and emerged only to shriek about all the indignities that she was subjected to.

Then she went into a sulk so prolonged that it was beyond anything I had ever seen, even for a Schnauzer, a breed notorious for its stubbornness.

She spent all night sitting upright in her crate, glowering. When it came to bed time, she refused to go with us into the bedroom -- this is the dog who's such an air-conditioning slut that she is the first to dash into the room as soon as it is turned on, and hog the bed.

She stayed out in the living room all night. I thought she'd give up and come in to bed when I turned off all the lights. Nope. Her will was greater. When I last checked on her, she had annexed Rupert's crate, which is roomier than hers, and was stretched out comfortably.

But L reported that when he checked on her, she was sitting upright in the dark. Glowering. And he got out of bed to check on her every two hours or so, he couldn't sleep without a Schnauzer-sized bump in our bed.

Clearly, she was punishing him, seeing him as the traitor who let in the groomer. I was just collateral damage.

The punishment continued into this morning. She wouldn't get out of the crate even though she obviously needed to pee. She'll usually come running up to the door when I put Rupert's leash on him as she can't stand to be left out. Not this time. When I came back after walking him, I rang the doorbell, thinking that it would surely get her out of the crate. She did bark furiously at the ring, but from the depths of the crate. She's smarter than me.

Finally, I abandoned my golden rule of not molesting any dog that's gone into its crate because it's its sanctuary, and L tipped it on its slide and she slithered reluctantly out. And she still refused to have anything to do with him, she came up to me and clearly indicated that I was the chosen one to walk her. Even though L usually takes her while I take Rupert when we walk the two together -- she is daddy's girl while Roop is mummy's boyo.

And so I retraced the route I had taken earlier with Rupert, my second walk of the morning with the second dog. I was being punished as well as L. She only acknowledged L somewhat when he set her lunch dish down.

I'm sure it's not over yet and that this is going to be a long drawn out soap opera of a Schnauzer dog story.

Say what you mean, mean what you say

I've had the most frustrating fortnight as my ISP changed mail servers and I couldn't access my primary email even though I'd followed instructions to the letter on changing the POP and SMTP settings.

I thought it was just me being dumb or something. Then when the ISP got battered on Net forums and Twitter over stuck email, I felt a little better.

But when I could finally dial through to the server, only to have it reject my password, I thought it was just me again. Especially as it accepted the same password when I checked the Web version of my mail.

Tech service was of no help -- if only because they couldn't even be reached. I lost patience and hung up after being put on hold for more than a few minutes.

So I toyed with all my settings. And then, amazingly, after a minor change, everything worked and my email was back in business. Where the prompt asked for username, I had duly given just my username. It really wanted username@address.com. The java error window couldn't express that, it could only tell me that it was rejecting my password when the problem all along was the username. Or more properly, username@address.com. It must've been programmed by a geek who didn't know how to say what he meant.

Now I feel kinda smug that I solved all that without tech service. They can go and tie up the phone lines and keep not saying what they mean.

These are the sort of brainards I work with

There were cookies left out on the communal food table at work some nights ago, and one of the night editors happened to be at the table while I was choosing which flavour cookie I wanted.

He looked at the little flat discs and muttered: "Can you imagine a three-dimensional being in a two dimensional world?" And went on to talk about a novel called The Flatlanders.

It was like jetstream, ie flying way up high above my head, very, very fast. So when I went back to my desk, I had to Google what he was talking about. It's a Victorian novella, published in 1884. I couldn't suppress the feeling that the ancient night editor probably read it when it first came out. Although Wikipedia tells me that it was also made into a movie in 2007, so maybe he might have read it again more recently.

And yes, it does examine the concept of different dimensions.

All this from cookies.

And I was having trouble choosing between chocolate chip and cranberry oatmeal.

The Queen and her royal comfort zone

You know the fairy tale about the princess that slept on a hundred mattresses? Well, this one is about the Queen who slept on my pillows.

When you're royalty, sleeping on the bed isn't quite good enough; you need to annex all the pillows as well.

Dear Nabilah, girls can do anything

The constituency that I live in publishes a thin family-style magazine that is distributed to all the residents in the ward.

One of the regular columns is a 'Kids Talk' section where a question is posed to young children living in the district, mostly in the hopes of getting cutesy or smarty-pants answers that only kids can give, along with pictures of them grinning, their fingers flashing a V sign that only young innocents can get away with.

This issue's question to them was "Would you like to be the Prime Minister of Singapore?" Most of the children, mostly aged 5 to 8, were completely disinterested.

Louis, 5: Uh-uh. (Shakes his head).
Q: Why not?
A: I don't even know what that is.

Nabilah, 8: Isn't it only boys can be PM?

The first answer is cutesy-funny but the second almost chilling. I don't know what's more disturbing, the girl's answer or her picture, in which she is already wearing a hijab. Strictly speaking, that's not required of her for some years yet, she's only 8 and clearly pre-pubescent. And already, she's somehow got the message that some jobs are for boys only.

I want to talk to her mother.

Comfort zone

L calls this the "furkids sandwich". It's always me, not him, that they press up against in bed. He gets plenty of space. But it sure does make me feel very loved. :)

In limbo

I haven't been updating due to a combination of reasons. My dad is in hospital for hip surgery after a fall and proving once again to be the patient from hell.

And my primary email account is unaccessible after my ISP migrated its mail servers, despite my following detailed instructions to change the POP & SMTP settings. Most frustrating, both ways.

So, nothing really nice to write about. Except last night, one of my supes came over, he had been reading the page proofs and brandished one that had a lead story which I subbed earlier.

"Eh, is this your handiwork?" he asked.

"What did I do now?" I groaned. It's my standard reply to him because everytime he comes over, it's to wag a finger at me because I missed a typo or a literal.

"You did good this time!" He liked the headline I had given and the pluck quote that I had selected.

It made my night. Now if only more supes will come round with good things instead of bad.

Fight this WMD

Spotted on a Tshirt: "Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction."

Makes sense. Now imagine what could have been achieved if the US$595 billion that was spent on the Iraq war went into fighting this WMD. 

Got the T-shirt

I now have the T-shirt version of my Valentine's Day card. :)





Whaddaya think, can L turn the furkids into a T-shirt line?

Breaking up is hard to do

I have been using the same credit card issued by a foreign bank incorporated in Singapore for quite a few years now, and I charge almost everything I buy to it because I don't carry a lot of cash with me. So the monthly bill is quite a bit because it reflects almost my entire expenditure, from necessities to household bills, and maybe the occasional luxury shopping item. But that helps me keep track of all my various expenditures at a single go.

But the card doesn't offer me very much benefits, other than accumulated bonus points, which can be redeemed for mostly shopping vouchers. Which holds no attraction for me since I'm not a great shopper. The card also offers some discounts at selected merchants. Which also doesn't appeal to me since a 10-20% discount is really just making you pay 80-90% for something.

So when a local bank offered a credit card that gives cash rebates, I decided that it'll benefit me more, and I decided to switch credit cards.

Getting a new one was easy. Cancelling the existing one was much harder. Foreign Bank Incorporated In Singapore wasn't going to let go of me that easily. When I called customer service, they politely told me that someone else would return my call.

Two days later, nobody had called me. So I called again. They either had a lot of people wanting to cancel their credit cards or they're making breaking up hard to do, I told customer service, even though I knew it wasn't their fault. They had to pass me on to someone more senior. And this time, they did. No call backs, they transferred me through straightaway. Well, not exactly straightaway. I was put on hold for a few minutes, during which a recorded voice informed me that Foreign Bank Incorporated in Singapore was aware that my time was very precious, that my call was important to them, and that I would be tended to shortly.

By a senior officer who had the authorisation to dangle all sorts of carrots -- freebies and bonuses -- to make me retain my credit card. She would upgrade me to a Platinum card. Not interested. She would give me vouchers and discounts, mostly at premium merchants. Don't shop there. She would waive the annual charge for the Platinum card. Local Bank's credit card waived the charges for three years.

She only gave up when I pointed out to her that I'm still a customer of Foreign Bank Incorporated in Singapore -- I still have a bank account with them, it's only the credit card that I'm cancelling. And that I will probably still let my money stay in Foreign Bank Incorporated in Singapore. Even though market talk has it that Foreign Bank Incorporated in Singapore's overseas parent may be nationalised.

The thing is, it isn't only the banks who are bending over backwards and dangling carrots when customers want to walk. Various service companies, telcos especially, are equally guilty. They offer all sorts of gifts and bonuses to attract new customers to sign on with them. But these are never offered to long-time customers who have remained with them. They only woo these people when they want to leave. And by then it's too late, the customer's mind is made up long before he reached the exit. You're just lucky he's not letting the door hit you on his way out. Isn't retaining a customer is more important than getting a new one a fundamental rule taught in business school? Well, I guess some people have been skipping classes.

Dicing with ice

L at the food court drinks stall:

"One bandung, one lime juice, no ice, please."

"No ice?" the stall assistant wanted to make sure before she dispensed the drinks into the paper cups.

"No. If you give me a cup full of ice, I won't get to drink anything." It's true, you take two long sips and all the drink's gone and you're left with a cup full of ice and you're still thirsty.

"Hey, ya hor, you're right." And a light bulb goes off in the head of the guy behind L in the queue.

L is now on his way to an iceless drinks revolution and pretty soon, we're going to be banned from the food court.

On guard

I'm well aware of having to be on the lookout for abandoned bags and suspicious packages on the subway but until I saw this poster on the platform, I didn't think that we're being threatened by rogue herds of footballs too. But I will now view every ball I see with suspicion. Anything to fight terrorism.

Light lunch

This was what L fixed me for lunch today -- a minced chicken patty (he calls it a chicken scone) lightly seasoned with salt and pepper then panfried with garlic, on a bed of chopped celery topped with cottage cheese.

Before your mouth starts watering, let me tell you that this was *dog food* that I was eating.

Yup, he made the "chicken scones" for the dogs, to top their kibble. Mine just happened to be stacked restaurant style on something green and plated nicely.

Happy Valentine's Day

L got the furkids down right, especially Queeni. But I think he misrepresented himself by giving himself too much hair. :)

I found it!

Having to explain Branston pickle is like having to explain Marmite. The natives love it, everybody else hates it. It's terrible on its own but makes yummy anything that you put it on.

I was introduced to Branston pickle when I was a university student, at the Third World Lunches at the campus chaplaincy. You paid a nominal sum for a ploughman's lunch of bread and cheese, and the money goes towards good causes in the developing world. An industrial sized jar of Branston stood next to the bread and cheese, I learnt very fast what a piquant pickle can do to liven up a dry cheese sandwich.

And then I had a 20-year drought of Branston in this part of the world until last summer's holiday in Britain. I think I must have put Branston on almost anything that I ate (unless I was eating out), chiefly to finish off a bottle in the few weeks that I was there.

I do remember standing at Tesco and wondering whether to buy a bottle home but decided against it as I wasn't going to risk a broken bottle and pickled clothes.

And then today, I found it here. In an expensive upmarket supermarket that catered mostly to expatriates.

L isn't going to touch this, there are apples, which he is alllergic to, in the pickle. This one is mine. All mine.

It won!

When I bought Raising Sand more than a year ago, I never thought it'd win a Grammy for best album -- even though I thought it was a pretty good album. Yay.

To add to my post of November 2007, if the Plant of Led Zep would have done a double take at the Plant of Raising Sand, then I wonder what he'd have to say to the Plant at the Establishment Grammys.

I wonder why broadcasters (and maybe TV audiences) in this part of the world are so fixated on movie awards but no attention is paid to music awards. We had the red carpet run-up show to the Golden Globes, in addition to a live telecast of the awards show, plus a repeat later in the evening. And the Oscars are being blurbed (live telecast again). But we didn't get to see the Grammys. And not even a whiff of the BAFTAs.

Even rock stars deserve awards, don't they?

Could anyone eat this with a straight face?

Spotted this in a pharmacy, in the supplements section. I had no idea what Horny Goat Weed is (it comes in two versions, His and Hers) and had to Google for it. Turns out it does naturally and herbally what Viagra does.

You gotta admit that with a generic name like that, it can sell itself without much marketing effort. And it's probably more organic than a blue rhumboid pill. But do you really want to put a Horny Goat Weed in your mouth?

That's my ringtone story and I'm sticking to it

I never use the electronic beeps that are programmed into the cellphone for you to select as your ringtone. I can never tell which is mine, and I need to use a melody ringtone that I can recognise if I ever hope to answer my phone.

Once, when a new cellphone was still set in the programmed beep that it came with, I ignored it as it rang and a friend who was with me asked me why wasn't I answering my phone. I didn't even recognise that my phone was ringing, I thought it the electronic squiggly noise was his phone going off and was wondering why wasn't he answering his phone!

So for the longest time, my cellphone played the theme from Star Wars when it rang.

Then L got a cellphone that could do sound recordings. I know that most cellphones do that now, along with the ability to carry out DNA testing and various other wonders that come with all the bells and whistles that come with a cellphone, but I like my phone to just let me make and answer calls -- if that's not too much to ask of a phone. So I used his phone to record Queeni barking (easily achieved by getting him to ring the door bell), and then sent it to my phone and Queeni barking became my ringtone.

It stayed that way until one day, I came back to my desk at work and very strange looks from my colleagues. I had left the cellphone on the desk when I wasn't there, and they were wondering why an empty desk was barking.

Time to change the ringtone. So I set the phone to another melody -- Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries.. Then I realised one thing -- sometimes when I was home watching TV, I'd hear the ringtone and then go off to pick up the phone, only to find that there was no call. There wasn't even a missed call, so it was not like I didn't pick it up in time before the caller rang off. But I swore I heard the Ride of the Valkyries go off. Most peculiar.

It wasn't until last week that I realised that Tina Fey's ringtone in 30 Rock was the same tinny Ride of the Valkyries..

Laugh all you want. But when you're prising yourself away from the sofa to answer a phone, you're not paying attention to what's going on on the TV, and you miss the fact that Tina Fey is also answering the phone and that Ride of the Valkyries stopped as soon as she did so.

It's time to change my ringtone again. Now, it plays Guns 'n' Roses' Sweet Child Of Mine for calls from home and Bon Jovi's Livin' On a Prayer for calls from other numbers.

I am unapologetic for my taste in 80s rock.

Sisyphus

Spotted as I walked across the playground on my way to the office today: A young kid was having fun kicking his football up the two levels of the low-incline handicap ramp leading to the playground. He was so pleased at being able to manoeuvre the ball up the incline that when he reached the top, he punched the air in celebration.

What he didn't anticipate was that after the ball rolled to the top, it rounded the landing and started to roll down the stairs next to the ramp. It then gathered momentum and started to roll down the stairs very rapidly as it followed the law of gravity.

The boy's look of joy turned rapidly to one of anguish and he had to run quickly after the ball before it got away from him at the foot of the stairs. And then he started kicking it up the ramp again.

Gongxi facai

May the Year of the Ox be a bull year for everyone.

Yoga With Dogs

Following the Catswhiskers' brilliant treatise on Yoga With Cats, I was inspired to embark on a course of Yoga With Dogs, with my two in-house yogis.

I should add that I'm already a long-time follower of the nocturnal version of Yoga With Dogs. It's a gruelling session that can go on for up to 8-9 hours, with one yogi at the foot of the bed and another at the head of the bed. The one at the foot of the bed specialises in his ability to hold an asana (and hence my position too, following his leadership) for as long as 5 hours. The one at the head of the bed takes us through more positions at the nudge of her snout. If we don't follow instructions promptly, the gentle nudge becomes a sharp dig, the snout is now a shovel and the cute button nose starts to quiver with indignation.

No, what I bravely embarked on was a course of day-time Yoga With Dogs. Up until now, I had left the yogis on the other side of the baby gate while embarking on such exercise because the routine rapidly evolved to Weight Resistance Training as one particular yogi insisted on leaning against, then sitting on, and finally bouncing off various body parts.

But this time, the Weight Resistance specialist merely lay down quietly beside me, yawning encouragement. Perhaps it helped that it was after his lunch and he had embarked on his own Weight Resistance Training (Internal Version).

As I huffed and pulled myself into position, the older yogi strolled in, glanced at me and assumed Downward Dog position (pictured below), expertly, fluidly and silently, compared to my efforts which were accompanied by the sound of popping joints. Then she looked at me insouciantly before yawning further encouragement.

It's so unfair, she has genetic advantage when it comes to Downward Dog.


Downward Dog is expertly demonstrated here by Yogi Sera from Sydney, and used with kind permission of Compaunmeri because my own yogis, despite their dedication to my personal fitness, were entirely camera uncooperative.

Supermodel

It all started when L, just for fun, put my dinner bag round Rupert's neck.


Is this bag me?


How about this one?

The only bags he's useless at modelling are clutches.

Household art

Dog leashes, hanging out to dry after being washed ...

... became a Hockney piece from L's perspective.

That'll do

So I'm a coward when it comes to watching a dog movie with potentially sad moments. So instead of going to Marley and Me, I'm spending my money on another John Grogan book instead. Anyway, the movie still isn't here yet.

I follow Grogan's blog now and then and I know this isn't his latest book. But it's only just got here. His newest book is not about dogs but about growing up in a Catholic family. No familiar ground there for me, so I'll stick to the doggy things. I don't think this one will make me cry. Thank goD.

So many toys, only two dogs

I was sweeping the floor, and as I went along, I picked up all the dogs' toys and placed them on the couch. That was when I realised all their toys take up the whole couch. Great, now there's no place on the bed for the humans, thanks to two small dogs stretching crosswise, there's also no place on the couch.


Ours, all ours!


So many chewies, only one mouth!

Fortifications

The baby gate has rusted after two years of Rupert jumping and drooling on it when he's shut away for the brief minutes between when Queeni gets served lunch first and when his dish is set down.

Yesterday, we installed all-new plastic ones -- plastic so rust won't be a problem this time round. Let's see what sort of Rupert damage this lot will have to endure.

Watching the watcher

We met a new dog downstairs yesterday. Jacky, a black mixed breed that looks like he has some Schnauzer in him, is two years old but has only moved into the block opposite us a few months ago.

Rupert, friendly to both dogs and humans, went up to say hello to Jacky's owner after sniffing Jacky's butt.

"We've seen a dog just like you!" she exclaimed as she patted him. "On the second floor. We can see him through the window and he's always jumping around when we walk past."

"Err, that would be Rupert; that's us on the second floor," I admitted.

So for all the times we've been watching dogs from the window, they've been watching us too.

Weird neighbours

First, someone upstairs threw out of the window an electrical appliance that landed on the roof of the pavilion next to our block.

Then, someone in the next block left a fridge by the ground floor staircase landing. It sat out there for a couple of days before it just as mysteriously disappeared.

Maybe the rag and bone man took it away. He does take TV sets and small electricals, I know. Maybe I should tell him about the one on the pavilion roof.

I really tried to shop

Would you pay me $50 for these old jeans? Levi's would. They have a promotion now, part of their "wear only the original" campaign where they will give you $50 for a pair of old jeans, any brand, and you can use that amount towards the purchase of a new pair of Levi's -- provided that it's priced at $100 and above. That's at least a 50% discount, I thought at first, but further browsing at the Levi's store revealed that most of their jeans cost closer to $200.

But a bargain is a bargain and I only had one requirement of them. If they took my old jeans, they had to give me a similar pair -- ie, capri length, preferably with embroidery trimming. This no-name brand pair was bought at a discount store, probably for less than $50 -- which made the bargain an even better deal. It's comfy but the stretch material has stretched so much through years of washing that the waist is too loose for me now and I need a belt to hold it up.

Only thing was, Levi's didn't have anything like this. They had straight cut, boot leg, skinny jeans but no capris. And definitely nothing with an embroidery trim. I wanted girly jeans, they only had "jeans" jeans.

I guess I'll hang on to this pair for a while longer.

Marley and Me and me

I don't understand the movie distributors here. Milk opened today but Marley and Me still isn't here yet. I seriously doubt if the average Singaporean knows who Harvey Milk is. Maybe a gay rights activist would, but that's still doubtful, there's no local context.

But who doesn't love a dog movie? Actually, to be honest, I'm almost scared of watching Marley and Me, as I confessed to a colleague yesterday. She fully understood. You know, just in case we make a mess of ourselves with Old Yeller-like endings.

I should add that this colleague wept when the sabre-toothed tiger died in Ice Age and I wept when the Jack Rusell in Babe 2 momentarily died and found himself leaping at butterflies in Heaven.

Marley and Me the book had already reduced me to tears, and that was even before the first chapter, the preface had already left me a basket case.

I went back to my archives to see what I wrote about it two years ago, and I can't believe that I actually blogged then that I bought the hardback because I didn't think a dog book would be popular enough here to make it to a paperback. (And that picture of the shelf of Prachett from that hardback post, well, that shelf is double-parked now.) And now, it's a movie. And not only did we have the paperback, we also had it in a promotional form where it came with a free leash -- a thin, nylon one that Marley would had for breakfast.

I also can't believe that I wrote I was ready to read Marley and Me because I had a prospective puppy coming. Maybe I should bring the not-quite-a-puppy anymore along with me to watch the movie version. Just so I have something to snuggle into, in case, god forbid, I should cry in public at a movie that's supposed to be generally feel good.

For what it's worth, the movie My Dog Skip never made it to the cinemas here. I bought the DVD but having got it, put it away in a drawer for almost six months before I could bring myself to watch it. Because I knew how the book ended.

I guess there's no way Marley and Me will bypass the local cinemas, not when there's Jennifer Anniston and Owen Wilson in it.

Work mate

Here's Roop doing his own silly thing -- sleeping on the bag that I carry to work, which I've discarded on the floor. It's hardly comfortable because there're poky things inside like a collapsible umbrella (it's monsoon season again), a wallet, diary and walkman, which must be jutting into his ribs. But then again, as L and I sigh when Roop does unexplainable things, "he's Rupert".



He's done this a few nights in a row, and now my bag is covered with fur. I don't mind it really. Sometimes at work, I'd look at the furry bits and smile when I think of my silly boyo.



And then, just for fun, L put round his neck the little cooler bag that I use to keep my packed dinner warm. I've got to say a fox terrier with a dinner bag looks more welcoming than a St Bernard with a brandy cask. But then I'm biased.

Sure wish I could take him to work with me though.

I'll be Crouching Schnauzer, you'll be Leaping Fox Terrier

I was enjoying an afternoon off on my deckchair by the window and the dogs and I were having fun watching two boys play at swordfighting downstairs.

Christmas is over

We hang the Christmas stockings at the window in lieu of a fireplace. Here's a pix of what our window looks like from the inside and outside before I take the Christmas decorations down.



My mother has always insisted that the Christmas decorations must come down by Epiphany or it'll be bad luck for the rest of the year. I think that's just a veiled threat to make sure that you don't have the tree up still in June. It's like how I think the custom of not sweeping the floor during Chinese New Year lest you sweep away the good luck was first started by a housewife who wanted a break.

But at least this year, the Chinese New Year decorations can go up as soon as the Christmas ones come down.

Things that go bump in the night

Late on Saturday night, at about 1.15am, there was an almighty crash outside that set the dogs off and got L out of bed. Nothing seemed amiss when we looked out.

The next morning, this was what we saw. I can't make out what it is, maybe a DVD player or a PlayStation or something. Certainly an electrical appliance of some sort. Somebody upstairs must have been incensed at a choice of DVD or at a teenager still up and playing games at that time of the night, and hurled the thing out of the window.

They're jolly lucky it didn't break anyone's head when it landed.

No one's claimed it after a day. I'm wondering if anyone will.

Dinner at home

This is specially posted for The Catswhiskers, L said to show you what we had for dinner last night. Beef stir fried with leeks, and bitter gourd with fish in black bean sauce.

it's not Chinese New Year food, I didn't break my promise to you of not posting CNY goodies.

You can get your back on L by posting pictures of real ale and Five County cheese.

I must be more Singaporean than I think -- I've started the year off by posting about food!

And now, the New Year food post

New Year's Eve is even quieter than Christmas Eve for us. Last year, we missed the countdown entirely because we were already in bed. Another year, we didn't even realise that it was midnight when we were out walking the dogs until we heard cries of "3,2,1, Happy New Year!" from the surrounding flats.

This year, I worked on New Year's Eve and Day -- payback time for getting Christmas Eve and Day off. But working hours were much earlier on New Year's Eve, designed so that everyone can push off in time for a celebratory dinner, instead of working through the night as usual.

So we decided to make something a little different. We roasted a duck. And we did that "muffin potato" thing, this time with a little egg as a binding agent and they came out pretty and perfect.





Happy New Year, everyone. May your plates always be full of shiok things.

Pairing

No real reason for this post. I just happened to be drinking and reading South African.

Last week, when we were doing the Christmas food shopping, L saw some cider and asked if I wanted to get some. I didn't at first, cider not being a Christmassy sort of drink like eggnog or mulled wine. But in the end, I got some because I hadn't had any since summer, and it brought back memories of a British holiday where I drank freshly drawn cider by the pints like it was juice.

It wasn't until I tore into the six-pack that I realised that this was from South Africa. It was the only cider in the supermarket, they didn't have anything British or Australian though they used to. There was a particularly cleverly named one called SydneyCider. I should have realised that anything called Savanna wasn't going to be from pommie country.

On top of that, the small print that wasn't seen through the six-pack outer wrapper warned that it contains sulphites. Well, it hasn't given me a headache so far. It tastes faintly beery. Yeasty. Or is it hops. That distinctive taste in beer. It's not at all like the fruity ciders of this summer past.

Maybe pairing it with JM Coetzee might make it go down better. Oh wait, Coetzee lives in Australia now, doesn't he? Could be Australian already. That's not going to help my chip-on-the-shoulder cider.

"Tak shiok"

I was playing the new Freddie Mercury-less Queen album, and after that, I had to put on Queen's Greatest Hits I & II.

"Tak shoik, right?" said L. "You listen to Queen but there's no Freddie so you had to play the old albums just to hear his voice."

He's got his finger on it. A term quite untranslatable if you don't speak Singlish. Shoik is usually used to describe yummy tasty food. Tak shoik would literally be not yummy but translating it like that just doesn't cut it.

No reviewer, not even anyone in Rolling Stone can come close to such a neat little description for the album: Nice but just tak shoik.

A sweet Christmas

I guess my friends -- and even my neighbours -- know what I like. And this doesn't include a stash that a colleague brought back from Italy -- a box of Italian Lindt and a thin bar of dark Tuscan chocolate packaged simply in anonymous brown paper but was outstandingly good, was never brought home, it was my supply at work.

I guess all this could last me till well into the New Year. Thanks, guys.

The Christmas food post

The turkey turned out great. All these Christmasses, we've never done turkey because it seemed too much for just two people. For Christmas, it had always been steak, or prime rib, or duck.

This year, we found a small Butterball in the supermarket freezer and L said why not. It was the size of a big chicken and it can't be any harder to roast a turkey than a chicken.

The last time either one of us cooked turkey at Christmas, we were both students, and it was in our respective dorms where the fellow diners weren't fussy.

Well, this time round, the ones who were going to get most of the turkey -- after we were done with it -- weren't as fussy either. We froze a leg for the dogs and there's another good side of meat for them in another tupperware in the fridge to add to their kibble over the next few days.

They also had the giblets cooked up for them as we didn't use it for the gravy. We opted not to make gravy because I had some frozen cranberries in the freezer that I turned into a sauce. It turned out more jellylike than saucelike and I guess I now have cranberry jam for my toast the rest of the week!

On Christmas Eve, we had steak and L got the idea of doing the potatoes this way from Bill's Fare on TV. You slice them, mix in some cream and then put them into a muffin pan and into the oven for 30-40 minutes. They're supposed to come out muffin-like.


All the strips sticking out of the muffin pan is grease proof baking paper. You put two strips crosswise, then the potato slices on top of it, and the paper strips will serve as handles to help lift out the potato muffins later when they're done.

Only I think L must have forgotten something in the ingredients, something that will bind the potato slices together. Because when we lifted the potato muffins out, they didn't stay in shape but collapsed onto the plate into what seemed like scalloped potatoes. They taste nice and creamy though, just like scalloped potatoes, only with more crunchy edges.



Perhaps next time we'll put in some egg maybe, or a little Bisquik mix with the cream as a binding agent. Some grated cheese would be good too. I can see we're going to do this again, with a whole lot of different variations.

And there was no room on the couch

Because They (and their toys) have taken it over.

And what are they getting this Christmas? More toys.

Christmas reading

My Christmas pressies to myself. You can tell, I was on a theme.

Our very own droid

Is it just L and me or do the battle droids in the animated Star Wars instalment The Clone Wars bear an uncanny resemblance to a fox terrier? The gangly limbs right down to the elongated shape of its head? Years from now, some animation historian (look, you have art historians now who study the Old Masters; stands to reason in the next generation you'll have animation historians who study Star Wars) is going to discover that some graphic artist probably had a fox terrier when he was a boy or something.

The battle droids are the enemy but they're silly and hence, likable. They're comic relief and they're not that smart -- that part is definitely foxie.

Roop's kinda like them too, ready to respond to anything you want. Only thing is, his interpretation of what you want could be something else. And he's always the crack first response team whenever HRH not so much growls but clears her throat while staring out the window.

The battle droids respond to their orders with a nasal "roger, roger". And that's why L has been going round saying "roger, roger" to Roop, who leaps up, ready and game for anything.

That poor brainless blighter probably now thinks his name is Roger.