Keeping watch

Yesterday, the neighbour downstairs held the annual festival to honour Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. They set up the altar a little distance away in the garden pavilion that was out of our line of sight so we didn't see the rituals but we had a grandstand view of the entertainment afterwards, which included a puppet show and some dancing lions.

Here's the three dogs (L is born in the Year of the Dog, he considers himself one of the Three Dogmigos that live in this house) watching a few very big cats.

Let's get real

First, there was yogurt with "real fruit", then almond-flavoured soya milk with "real almonds", then dog food with "real meat".

I could have gone round the supermarket snapping pictures of "real" food.

I've had mock meat before, made from soy gluten for vegetarians, but if fruit and almonds weren't real, then what's the alternative? Pretend fruit and bluff nuts? Or worse, meat masquerading as fruit since soy can be disguised as meat?

So what are you having for dinner today? Real food?

Only in Singapore...

Will there be a Chinese national manning the Indian prata stall at the food court.

And no, she couldn't toss a prata, she could only reheat pre-made ones. And if you wanted thosai, that had to be freshly made, you had to wait till the regular Indian cook got back.

Happy National Day.

More incredible TV ads

Voiceover to scenes of grass rustling in the wind, ocean waves crashing in a swell
"You won't always see me...
But you will feel me...
For I am here...
For a higher purpose..."

You'd think that God Himself was advertising.
Nope. Just the Air Force. Almost as good as God.

What's in my Walkman

Once in a blue moon, there comes a new CD release that you know you won't be wasting your money on even if you bought it ... err, what's the aural equivalent of sight unseen? Sound unheard?

Like the Travelling Wilburys, Chickenfoot's pedigree is enough to make you sit up and take notice. Quite literally, they are Satriani meets Van Halen meets Red Hot Chilli Peppers. What is there to go wrong? In a nutshell, they sound like Satriani with singing. Finally, a Satriani album you can sing to.

Losing half your audience

The TV ad for the Volkswagen Golf G77 shows the car doing some slick manoeuvres and then it fades out to the words:
"Men drive it.
Boys dream about it."

Either the creative director was a man or they are not interested in selling to women.

Somebody has forgotten that "women hold up half the sky". I hope their sales fail and their mothers/wives/sisters/daughters give them hell.

And their competitors run a similar ad with their car doing the nifty moves, the same tagline, only it cuts away to final scene where a woman steps out of the car. Oh, ok, she can remove her crash helmet and shake out her long, blonde tresses....

Culture shock

The ongoing Singapore Heritage Festival has a lot of events going on all over the island. Some are pretty good, like Chinese hand puppet shows and Indian dance performances.

Some are well ... you wonder what it's trying to achieve. The instalment at the shopping centre near where I live takes the form of an exhibition on childbirth and how the different cultures in Singapore welcome a new baby. And it draws this whopping conclusion -- that a child is the glue that holds a family together.


Which I find incredible and also somewhat insulting. I know enough families who have children that have become unstuck. And I know families who have no children and who are doing fine, thank you very much.

I have two children -- only they each have four legs and a waggy tail -- and while their needs take centrestage in the family scheme of things, this family -- any family -- would be on dangerous ground if a child is required to bind it together.

I do understand though, what a newborn means. But surely it can't be the be all and end all of family living. Children, in themselves, are sort of worthless. They are practically useless and must be cared for. Their importance lies in the long term: the promise of things to come in the future -- much like a Warren Buffet investment.

Given that National Day is approaching, I have a feeling that all this is part of the propaganda to address the falling birthrate and a sneaky way to press my womb into National Service.

Maybe I'll just adopt another dog.

Chain of errors

When I cancelled a credit card earlier this year, I had forgotten that there was a cash guard insurance policy riding on it. It was only brought to my attention in May when the insurance company sent me a letter when it failed to deduct the annual premium from the now dead credit card.

I had been paying them S$70 every year without realising it, for the past 6 or 7 years!

So I got back to them and a very nice customer service officer sorted it out and said that they could attach the policy onto the new credit card. And reminded me to check my credit card statements. Since this was an annual deduction, that must have been why I overlooked it, and forgot all about the policy, he suggested. And since the premium deduction was imminent, he suggested that I email them the new credit card number instead of going through the usual route where he would send me a form, I would fill it, and send it back, which would take weeks to process.

And so I did. And received a return email from customer service which said that they have my new credit card number and would forward the details to their billing department.

Well, the billing department must have been out of the loop because the next thing I got was a letter saying that my policy had been cancelled. But if I wanted to reinstate it, I could do this, that or the other. Which involved calling them. On the customer service hotline. Which takes you through a loop through eternity before you can even talk to someone human. And there's no way of calling the nice customer service officer who handed your problem. You had to call the central line. Which loops through pressing numbers for everything except what you needed.

In the meantime, someone else from the same insurance company called me, trying to flog other insurance products. Since I had someone human on the phone, I directed her attention to my problem, adding that I'm obviously not in the mood to buy anything from your company till it fixes that problem.

She was as nice as the first guy. She had the relevant people sort it out, and called back to check that it was sorted out. And I thought it was.

Until on Thursday, I got a letter saying that the policy was reinstated and that henceforth, the monthly premium would be deducted from the new credit card.

Except that this was supposed to be S$70 annually. Not monthly.

Back I went to customer service hotline's runaround hell. I sent them an email too. At least when you hit send on an email, it does go somewhere. Unlike voice recorded phone hotlines.

And today, I get another letter. This time they got things right. Policy reinstated, annual premium deduction. Yada yada. No apologies. No signature. Computer-generated letter.

Do they really think I would buy their products the next time they call?

Listen, AIG: If you can't take care of the small things, you can't settle the big ones.

Their bailout cheque should have been this:

Turn-down surprise

In five-star hotels, you get a chocolate mint on your pillow. In two-dog homes, you get a knobby hard chew-bone. Always check the pillow before you rest your head.

Yoga With Dogs positions

The human is maintainining a tree (supine) position, one leg bent, with the sole of that leg on the thigh of the other leg.

The schnauzer is in downward dog (prone).

The fox terrier, as always, is in something of his own making. We call this one the grasshopper kungfu pose.

Let sleeping dogs lie

... after you've taken the pictures.


Mirror image


Rorschach test

Last dinosaur left standing

I should have seen it coming. A month after my ISP migrated its email servers, it sent me a letter saying that by end-June, it would no longer continue to offer dial-up services. Because the nation had gone wired and broadband was easily available etc. Basically, it means that I'm a dinosaur and it's not worth their while to service me.

I like being a dinosaur. When I moved in, there was already a phone line and I had no reason to switch broadband because I don't surf the Net much. I spend like maybe an average of 15 minutes on it a day, mostly for email, update this blog, follow other blogs. And dial-up suited all that just fine. Not to mention that it cost peanuts. The cheapest broadband package comes at twice that price and with all the hoops and whistles that I don't need.

Of course, I could do much more if I had broadband. But the point is that I don't want to do much more. An average of 15 minutes a day on the Net suits me just fine (and this includes loading pages on a 56K modem). I don't want to spend hours on YouTube viewing friends' baby videos, I don't want to make new friends on Facebook and poke old friends. If I had broadband, I'd be doing all that and given that I still only have 24 hours a day, that's less time I have for other things -- like making friends in the flesh and visiting friends to laugh at their babies' actual antics.

If I really want to connect via broadband, I have free WiFi at the library, thanks to my tax dollars at work. But the real reason why I haven't got broadband at home is because when we moved in almost three years ago, we wanted to get a broadband/cable TV/phone line package that the telcos offer. But we didn't have a cable-ready TV. Hell, we didn't *have* a TV. My parents gave us a spare portable set that got its reception from rabbit-ears antennae. It was supposed to be temporary. But with a procrastinator in charge of getting the TV and the broadband package, what was temporary extended to almost three years. So blame it all on L.

If this blog becomes extinct after June 30, it's because the dinosaur's Net access has been pulled out from under its feet.

Good afternoon

And this was how Roop got woken up. He had gone into his crate for an afternoon nap, turned over in his sleep, rolled around a bit, and then forgot which way was up when he opened his eyes.

The laws of gravity do not apply to those who are not of this earth.

Good morning

I had the camera-enabled mobile phone on the nightstand next to me, and this was what I woke up to. A furry and somewhat concerned face. Concerned over his bladder's contents, that is.

Three heads are better than two

It's either a pathetic individual or a dog parent who will post about dog toothbrushes back to back. If Friday's find of a double-headed toothbrush was brilliant, then today's find of a triple-headed one was beyond brilliant. (Just don't ask me what I was doing at the pet store twice in two days. Those dogs sure get spoilt.)

This toothbrush has been christened The Anaconda. Just right for fox terrier teeth so stained, he looks like he's been chewing tobacco. Actually, his teeth look pearly white, but that's only on the outside. It's when he yawns and you see the inside of his teeth that he really needs some help from The Anaconda.

Instruments of torture

That's what HRH would call the toothbrushes. I found a new dog toothbrush at the pet store yesterday. It comes with two heads, designed to be able to brush both the inside and outside of a dog's teeth. Previously, with the so-called dog toothbrush that doesn't look very different from a human toothbrush, I could only brush the outer side of the teeth efficiently.

L calls this new two-headed toothbrush The Cobra. You have no idea how brilliant I found it to be -- almost as brilliant I think, as liver-flavoured antibiotics that don't have to be disguised or catapulted into the throat of an uncooperative dog.

Rupert thinks the new toothbrush just a new fangled eating implement that lets him swallow more poultry-flavoured toothpaste.

People generally think of great inventions as something that has made life easier and better. Well, I wouldn't quibble that the wheel is generally a good thing to have; that air-conditioning makes life comfortable in the tropics; and sliced bread is quite handy too.

But I still think liver-flavoured dog pills and double-headed dog toothbrushes rank up there with the wheel.

Day off at home

I have the day off and I'm spending it at home, stuck to the couch, because all my days off the past few weeks have been spent running errands and doing housework. So I'm feeling lazy today and in lieu of writing, am posting an at-home lazy-type picture instead.



Notice how HRH has the spot of honour on Sucker Dad's lap while the minion is relegated to the floor cushion?

Mundane existence

I haven't blogged lately and this entry has got nothing terribly interesting to say -- it's really just about how a new underground line opened on Thursday; so now, my daily commute to work has gone from a train and bus combination to a weather-proof all-train combination involving a switch on three lines, shaving about 15-20 minutes of travel time.

Like that is really rivetting and like that really matters to you.

I need to get a life.

In a pickle

But in a good way. I once posted about a hard to find British delight that I'm quite partial to. I could only get it at an upscale supermarket downtown, which catered mostly to expatriates.

Then the supermarket down the road that I go to remodelled, and has expanded its range of offerings to include a lot more British and Australian foods. That must say quite a bit about the changing tastes of Singaporeans.

At first, it was a bit frustrating to shop there as they were remodelling while still open for business, and shelves were being shifted about so the whole layout of the place has changed. It's disconcerting because you thought you know where to find everything in your regular supermarket but now nothing's where it used to be.

But today, something made up for the confusion -- Branston pickle, in three sizes.

Dying profession

A couple of years ago, we were shocked that B, a friend of ours, in his mid-40s then, was hospitalised for a heart attack and had to have a quadruple bypass. He worked in public relations.

Last year, E, another friend, never regained consciousness after a massive heart attack. He was barely 40. He worked in public relations.

Last night, we met up with M, who said that he'd quit his job and was taking a break. He then told us that he had a minor stroke last year, and he's only in his mid-30s. He realised that there was more to life than work. His job? Public relations.

Not that hard to see the thread running through these three individuals. And that's why L isn't going back into PR. Not that he hasn't tried. I just won't let him. He used to clock in 14, 15-hour days and his blood pressure would soar like a kite.

L mildly tried to remonstrate with me for putting my foot down. "Who are you to tell me what to do?"

"Your wife. The one who has to bury your corpse."

End of argument. Wife wins. As always.

Pink party

There was no issue finding the place at all. We just followed the river of pink out of the tube station as soon as we got off the train.



Even the dogs came in pink.



L said I should get patented the slogan I had crayoned on our T-shirts. And then mass-produce them for sale. We had so many people coming up and asking if they could take photos of us. Must be what being a celebrity feels like.







Better, ie pro, pix here.

In the pink

We're ready for Pink Dot.

I'm actually a little disappointed by the reactions of some people, friends even, to the event which would actually be to their benefit. Some are so caught up in the bitching in the community that they can't pull together for a common good. Others are so embittered and angst-ridden from years of injustice and unfairness that they're just plain cynical. Nobody ever helped them, so why help the cause?

It's the same Singaporean self-focused blinkered psyche that doesn't see the person behind, that lets them slam the door in the face of the person behind them instead of holding it open.

We've had years of courtesy campaigns, but it's less to do with good manners and more to do with the inability to look beyond our own noses.

Sometimes I wonder why I bothered to the extent of getting a pink Tshirt for the pink dress code and even personalising it. I mean, this shouldn't even be my battle.

But if nobody cared beyond their own noses, people would still be slaves, women still wouldn't be able to vote, and a black man wouldn't be the leader of the free world.

If not me, who? And if not now, when?

Infamous

There was some pop concert thing on the TV and a guy I didn't recognise was doing his stuff onstage.

"Who's he?" I asked L, who was watching.

"Chris Brown."

"Who's he?" Obviously, I don't follow latter-day pop.

"The guy who beat up Rihanna."

So he can sing, he can dance, he can do it all but that's what he's going to be remembered for. Serves him right. And it's not even like I like Rihanna's music. I still think she cribbed from New Order.

Mother's Day

I had to work today but was sent off fortified by cinnamon french toast with a heart-shaped centre.


Yup, it was a happy day.

Curtain protection

Over the weekend, the swine flu alert went up one notch. And practically the whole country switched into the SARS mode of a few years ago and put up the ring fences.

At work, we prepared to split our operations into two separate locations. Visitors had their temperatures taken and their contact numbers noted. That also applied to visitors at the hospital where my dad is. It is a facility for step-down care. It doesn't have an accident and emergency unit, so it does not take in unreferred outpatients, least of all sick Mexican tourists. But it stuck to the policies that the other fully fledged hospitals were implementing. Which also included a strict policy of one named visitor per patient was enforced.

Today, dad had to leave the facility to return to the hospital where his cardiologist is, for a follow-up appointment. When he returned to the step-down facility, he was considered as a readmitted patient. Simply because he had busted the ringfence. He had to be quarantined.

He was put back in the same bed, in the same room, with the same people.

So how was he isolated?

By having the curtains drawn round his bed.

And all because he breathed the air outside the ringfence.

And swine flu isn't even in the country.

The health minister called a press conference today and said that if nothing deteriorates, he will lower the flu alert one level, and this means no temperature taking and lifting the one-visitor rule at hospitals.

However, quarantine still applies to visitors entering the country from affected areas.

He didn't say if it applied to an old man who left one hospital for a few hours to see his doctor at another hospital.

And if a curtain round a bed can stave off germs like a N95 mask.

Gourmet dinner

L got inspired after watching Emeril Lagasse do a spot of guest cooking on the Martha Stewart Show. I don't know what the recipe is actually called, but it's best described as chicken layered with stuffing. As opposed to chicken stuffed with stuffing.

You basically cook up the "holy trinity", as the celebrity chef called it, of onions, carrots and celery in white wine and stock. Then you line a baking tray with pieces of bread, layer the veg over it, then layer some chicken fillet over that, then bung the whole thing in the oven.

And BAM, as Lagasse would say, chicken and stuffing. Without having to stuff anything. Easy as pie.

Sad story

The cement floor in front of the rubbish collection centre at the ground floor of our block of flats is always stained. That's where the central rubbish chute that runs down the whole block empties into a dumpster, and in the morning, the garbage truck pulls up, backs in, the louvre door is slid up and the dumpster emptied into the truck. There are always brown stains on the floor after the truck pulls away.

Sometimes, the stray cats hang about there, and we feed them there when we see them. Usually, they would have torn into plastic bags of garbage left there by the ground floor residents, who don't have access to the chute like those on the higher floors. So there'd be garbage scattered about after the cats are done.

Last night, somebody ended his life at the spot.

We heard a thump as we were entering our flat after walking the dogs. I thought a car hit something. L said he'd pop out again and check, as he wanted a smoke (he smokes outside the flat when I'm home). It wasn't a car, it was a person. Someone had jumped

We called the police. Everything else that happened after that was like CSI. The police tape. The flashes as the police photographer did his job. I wouldn't have been surprised if Gil Grissom stepped out from one of the police vehicles that pulled up.

Except that things don't end neatly like a TV series, after the credits roll.

Today, there's a wake at the pavilion across the block.

And instead of the little stains, there's a noticeably big, dark one.

And the garbage truck pulled up, backed over the spot, took its load and left.

Working boy

I sent off for a dog haversack as the furkids have eaten enough dogfood and accumulated enough coupons to redeem it.

Rupert was proud and happy to be given a job (Queeni just looked askance from her perch on the sofa).


L thinks he can now have beer on walks with the dogs.


But I'm really thinking that Rupert can now help to carry the groceries home from the supermarket.

Fracas at the vet

It's not good when it's your dog causing the drama. That is to say, Queeni, back at the vet's yet again, this time to remove stitches, decided that enough was enough and decided to eat a husky for breakfast. She leapt out of her carrier and went for a dog five times her size, lip curled back, teeth bared and snarling.

The husky tried to hide from her, under a chair. It couldn't even fit under the chair. But anything was better than nothing against the wrath of a fed-up schnauzer. It would have been funny if Queeni's behaviour wasn't so shocking.

And then a guy with a mastiff type dog walked in. He saw the schnauzer trying to eat a husky and decided that it was safer for the mastiff to wait outside in the carpark.

Never get in the way of a Queen who's not amused.

Stuck fast

If there's one thing more annoying than getting an earworm of a song stuck in replay mode in your head, it's getting an earworm of a Hindi song (or maybe it's Telegu, I really don't know, because the dance master used to act in Telegu movies) -- you don't even understand the words and can't really sing along.

This, I've discovered, is the latest side-effect of taking that Bollywood dance class -- and it lasts longer than the aching knees.

Up until now, I hadn't really stopped to listen to the music, I was too preoccupied with the counts -- I was stepping to the counts, not dancing to the music. But 3 weeks of repetition -- of moves and music -- have produced a muscle memory that's taken over so now I'm actually starting to listen to what I'm moving to.

The supposed cure for an earworm is singing. You sing it out of your system, so to speak. I don't even know how to start searching for this song on YouTube. It's destined to wind its way through my head forever. I'm struck by the Bollywood curse again.

Romeo + Juliet

In this day and age, the latter-day story of the star-crossed lovers would involve a same-sex couple. Because they are not legally permitted to love whom they choose, and marry whom they love, the only way that Romeo can live with Juliet in her country is to get a job there and hold an employment pass.

And then hardship fell across the land, and Romeo's employer went into financial difficulties. In an attempt to save $50 in fees, it did not renew Romeo's employment pass. And with it, went his right to stay. And so, Romeo was forced to leave the country.

He did try to get an extension, but the government official told him that he couldn't grant that as Romeo's been illegal for the past six months because the pass wasn't renewed that long. He did tell Romeo that it wasn't his fault, but his ex-employer's fault. But all that was not of much comfort to Romeo, Juliet or Romeo's dog.

Whenever Romeo wasn't home at night, the little daschund would refuse to settle in bed with Juliet or her dog, even though he loved them both. He loved his daddy more. He would pace the house in the dark, searching for his daddy because he just wasn't used to not being able to cuddle up with him.

When Romeo packed his bag to leave, he left it open and went to the kitchen to do some laundry. When he came back, the little dog had crept into his bag and snuggled into it, as if willing his daddy to take him along.

And Juliet's heart broke twice. Once to have Romeo leave. And again to see the little dog pine for Romeo.

All this is a true story. Juliet is one of my closest friends. And Romeo left this morning.

All for saving $50, three lives are wrecked in a little family, not to mention their circle of friends.

OK, so the ex-employer is in a lot of financial trouble and is being sued for a whole lot more than $50. But if they'd even said something before things fell apart, Romeo would have gladly paid the money out of his own pocket. That would have at least given him some time to stay on in the country, some time to find another job.

Hell, I'd be the first one there with a $50 bill. But I want to stuff it up the nose of their CFO. And then get the daschund to pee on the friggin bastard.

T-shirt model

The red carpet welcome has gone back to a two-dog duty. HRH is coming out of her sulk. It's not so much pain or discomfort, but the T-shirt that she's been forced to wear. She just doesn't like wearing stuff.

The doggy T-shirt a gift sent from our KCMO friends years ago. It was meant for Spock, the Jack Russell in residence before Queeni came into the picture.

So royalty's basically reduced to wearing hand-me-downs.

Signs of the times, ain't it?

Still out of it

(The T-shirt was the vet's suggestion, to protect her stitches from being scratched out. It's a more pleasant alternative than getting her to wear a satellite dish on her head.)

One of the joys of dogs is the way they drop everything when you step through the door and come racing up, jumping at you, pawing at you and covering you with slobber in their delight to welcome you back.

I only got the half treatment last night. Rupert poured out his usual enthusiasm and then went on to do his happy bounds round the living room, on the couch and off the couch. I guess he now qualifies as the Emergency Back-up Dog.

Queeni, usually the more vocal of the two, was absent. She was in bed, under the covers, between L's legs, and she wasn't going to move. When I peeled back the covers, all she did was to give me a Look.

I'm being punished for leaving her at the vet's and subjecting her to all sorts of horrors.

L was being punished too. He couldn't move his legs for as long as she was lying between them.

Operation

Queeni's favourite stuffed toy is getting a neurological patch-up while HRH herself had surgery to remove a lipoma. The vet is 99% certain it's a benign fatty lump but will send it for histopathology just to be on the safe side, given her mast cell tumour history.

Meanwhile, she is carried everywhere, spoonfed, and gets the most comfortable cushions.

Every inch a queen.

No place like home

It was nice to have taken last week off and spending the time just being home. You know that I had such a great time away from the office when I totally forgot my password when I got in to work today and tried to log on.

Possibly the worst job in the world

Foreign Bank Incorporated in Singapore must be worried about losing customers. I, for one, had withdrawn quite a bit from my savings account, leaving just the sum that was covered by the deposit guarantee scheme. On top of that, I had also cancelled my credit card.

Now, printed across the bottom of the monthly statement of account, is a gentle reminder that deposits are covered by the guarantee scheme. I have a a feeling that more than quite a few people withdrew their money.

One of their reps called me, introducing himself as my new personal banker, exhorted me to call on him if I needed any of his services, and left me a whole string of numbers at which I can reach him, short of giving me his mother's home phone number and maiden name. I suppose dog walking doesn't count as a service I can call him for.

I had gone through 4 or 5 personal bankers in as many years. The last but one was an analyst in his former job and must've seen the end coming because a good year before the financial crisis broke, he quit to set up a business in Vietnam manufacturing souvenirs. Anything but banking.

So the new guy kept reiterating: "Please give me a call, I'll be glad to be of service."

"So you just joined the bank?"

"Yes."

"You poor, stupid bastard."

And I really felt sorry for him.

"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.