Bah, humbug

I didn't join in Earth Hour, didn't turn off my non-essesntial lights for an hour between 8.30pm and 9.30pm on March 27. Partly because all the non-essential lights and non-essential anything were already off anyway. This household practices Earth Year all round, and not just lip service for an hour once a year.

And why should I sit for an hour in the dark when the people who could have really done something about climate change sat around and did absolutely nothing in Copenhagen?

Playdog

Styling by L; I disclaim all liability.

Dogbert would make me feel better

The designer/layout artist assigned to work with me on a magazine project hasn't got InDesign loaded on her Mac. So we requisitioned it.

Then her Mac's memory wasn't enough for the program. So we asked for an upgrade.

But an upgrade to the OS would mean that it would be incompatible with another programme.

Bangs head.

Help me, I'm caught in a Dilbert warp.

As sure as there are fishes in the ocean

The fine print on the label of this bottle of cider (and isn't Pipsqeak such a cute name?) is: "Contains/produced with fish products"

So somebody please tell me where's the fish in apple juice?

Ageing workforce

I know the government keeps harping on remaining in employment well beyond retirement age, contributing to the economy even in one's golden years and all that stuff.

But it's a helluva kick to my stomach when the cleaner clearing up after me in the food court is a bent-over grandma. When you go to the food court down the road from your house at an average of twice a week, the cleaners become familiar faces, and you start nodding at Aunty and Uncle, and try not to leave too much of a mess for them to clean. This particular grandma is a sprightly old thing, and I've seen her and the other aunties delightedly share the bounty of a plate of unsold food that a stallholder gave them. So yeah, they have a good time at work but really, I would challenge any minister who wags on about re-employment for the elderly to eat in a foodcourt and have someone older than his mother pick up his plate. It doesn't do much for the digestion.

Marmite on toast

Remember the Virgin Mary toast?

Well now, there's Jesus on the Marmite.

Good and bad gnus

The good bit is that the dog whom we once seriously considered to have a case of mental arrested development seems to be showing signs of cognition -- he saw at the window another dog passing outside, and he wanted to get at this dog (in a friendly way), so he ran to the door. In other words, he has finally worked out the difference between outside and inside (which he didn't use to, judging from his toilet habits) and also connected that the door was what took you outside.

The bad bit is that he slammed against the closed door. Twice. Two thumps. And whined. He hasn't yet realised that it's only an *open* door that can take you outside.

The face in the window

A goods van drove past Rupert and I when we were out for our walk, and turned into the multi-storey carpark. Being only knee-high, Roop missed the sight of a grey furry face riding shotgun beside the driver, a face whose ears picked up when it caught sight of Roop, a head that tilted as it looked questioningly at Roop. Yay, yet another Schnauzer in the neighbourhood.

What happened to holding up half the sky?

International Woman's Day (yesterday) was not a good time to read The Economist -- the cover story really made me sit up. It wasn't so much the topic -- gendercide -- or even the fact that China and India had abnormally high male sex ratios at birth. It was the fact that Singapore was also among the Asian (read paternalistic) countries with a skewed male sex ratio that was above the natural rate. At no point did it even imply that Singaporeans kill unwanted baby girls, it merely pointed out that distorted sex ratios are not confined to the poor, uneducated, illiterate agrarian societies because distorted sex ratios also exist in affluent societies such as Singapore. Now I'm stunned. Is there something happening in my backyard that I'm not aware of?

There's a reason why they're called killer whales

It's a horrible tragedy, the SeaWorld orca that drowned its trainer. Somewhere along the way, we've lost sight of orcas as hefty sentient beings with minds of their own and need to be respected in their own right. Which is why I feel weird visiting marine parks and didn't want to swim with dolphins in Hawaii. It must be a form of Disneyfication -- to think that dolphins are friendly, because they have smiley upturned jawlines; and sharks are nasty, because they have rows of sharp teeth.

I live with two dogs and I don't forget that they are really two wolves in my parlour -- even if they look so cute when snoring across the sofa that they're instantly forgiven. Which is why I disagree with L when he picks up and cuddles the one that looks like a teddy bear whenever the cuteness factor so impels him. If any pet owner hasn't been biten or scratched, it is because their dogs and cats have shown great restrain. Even a chihuahua is capable of taking off a finger, if it really wanted to. Maybe they should, everytime they're stuffed into a handbag. Teach us some respect.


Rupert's the sweetest natured dog I've ever had, but those teeth can do a lot of damage -- if it occurred to him.

Tax dollars at work

A friend of mine (who should be unnamed for his/her protection) recently became a librarian at a public library. Which means that I'm technically paying his/her salary since he/she is now a public servant.

Well, I just found out that public servants who work at libraries get reimbursed for a tailored jacket every year. They also receive a S$100 shoe allowance every year because they must wear "covered shoes".

I pointed out that the shoes which I wear to work -- Converse sneakers -- are also covered shoes but apparently they are not considered to be the same class.

Stepping out of line

There was a long queue for the two counters at the post office when I got in. You joined that one queue to be served at either counter when you reached the top of the queue. But the post office had a new policy -- if you were only buying postage stamps, you could cut the queue and go up to the one counter that was dedicated to that. Presumably, it took less time to serve a customer who was only buying stamps than someone who was paying bills (which must be the post office's main transaction these days -- who buys stamps any more let alone send snail mail?)

But the guy at the top of the queue who should have been served next didn't realise that, and asked the fellow who jumped queue to join the end of the line. The counter staff politely explained that he could cut the queue as he was only buying stamps, and it wouldn't take a minute to serve him. So Top Guy gave up, went back to the top of the queue and waited.

Which I suppose was very bad timing for me to pipe up from at the end of the queue to the staff: "I'm buying stamps AND paying for a bill -- so where do I queue?"

So they waved me to jump queue since I fulfilled the buying stamps requirement. Which meant that Top Guy got eclipsed by two people already. But he had the good humour to sigh and say maybe they should create a new queue policy just for people like me.

I knew it, I'm special.

Heart & soul

I recently caught an interesting programme on the Chinese language TV station, a locally produced series called Hometown Flavours. Every week, it features a local television actor or actress, and explores a home-cooked dish particular to that person's dialect group. It looks at how it is cooked in Singapore with maybe a short sequence shot at a hawker stall or restaurant that sellls the dish, then cuts to China where the actor tastes it in a local restaurant and talks about the difference. Then he is sent to the market to get the ingredients and must cook the dish with a local family.

In the episode I watched was a scene where a Hakka actress is in a China market getting ingredients for lei cha (literally, thunder tea -- it is herbs, peanuts and sesame seeds ground into a paste which is turned into a "tea" with hot water. That is poured over a bowl of cooked rice topped with spoonfuls of different diced vegetables, peanuts and beans. You stir it up into a sort porridge of leftovers, that's what it essentially is.) Anyway, at the China market, the actress was peppering the stallholder with questions of what sort of vegetables to buy and how much to get. From off camera, you could hear the stallholder's wife scolding him. So the actress went over to Mrs Boss and tried to engage her conversation, and Mrs Boss just snapped back: "Why should I waste my time talking to you even if you are filming? You just talk and you don't buy anything."

And this is why I don't buy Chinese. No customer relations and no PR, and absolutely no heart, whether it is a market stall or a milk powder producer or pet food manufacturer, it's always just the cold hardnosed bottom line.

Fleeting moment of fame

... here, at about 2 minutes into the video. Closest I'll ever get to a Pulitzer. :)

A visitor

... and over Chinese New Year too. This praying mantis on the outside ledge of the living room floor-length window had the dogs in a tizzy -- directly at nose height but on the other side of the glass. So near and yet so far.

Festive abundance

This display of Chinese New Year goodies is for the benefit of overseas Singaporean friends who need a pineapple tart fix. [evil grin]. (The bak kwa isn't in this picture because it's in a tupperware in the kitchen. So consider yourself spared. [even bigger grin]) You can take a foodie out of Singapore, but you can't take Singapore out of a foodie.

Actually, I hardly ever buy so much CNY goodies because I have few visitors and don't want to be the one taking on all the calories by myself. But this year, I had a bumper harvest, primarily because my mother's neighbour set up a home-baking business, invited her to be quality control and mum outsourced the job to me. Talk about the benefits of job sharing.

We also had an excess of mandarin oranges because our Malay neighbours presented us with a some. And since they didn't have hongbao, they did the next best thing -- possibly an even better thing -- they gave us a flat box of chocolates that came in a red wrapper.

Gongxi facai. Wishing everyone an uproariously happy and prosperous Year of the Tiger.

All dressed up

... and somewhere to go. Chinese New Year visiting, to the grandparents. And yes, they got hongbaos.

We'z gotta look sharp. We can't let a big cat get all the attention just because it's the Year of the Tiger.

Tissue alert

The premise is simple: your dog is the best dog in the world, despite little foibles like eating your furniture; he grows old; you know his time is up; and when you say goodbye, it breaks your heart and you write a tribute to him.

It's a tried and tested dog book formula. And it works. Some work better than others when they become movies and you can cast Jennifer Aniston as the wife.

Some of those books should come with a warning label. It doesn't mean a bad label though. Just that it's so good, so evocative that it will make you cry.

Which meant that riding the bus to work was the worst possible place to read Life with Beau. It took me less than half an hour to read the slim 82-page volume. And a whole lot longer to pull myself together. But oh, how much emotion was packed into that thin book. Marley -- as much as I loved it -- aint got nothing on this.

My first spelling mistake

Maybe the folks behind this pre-school group was going for cutesy little tyke sort of spelling. But you'd think that parents looking for their kid's first school would want to pick an institution that can spell school in the first place.

You know how teachers have been blaming students' lack of ability to spell nowadays on texting and instant chat. Well, it started way before that. Dun blame e fone, e teech in skool st8ted it 1st.

Second look

I didn't take a second look at the new Adam Lambert CD. I thought it was Rihanna. Don't they look the same to you? It's that "my head hurts" pose.