Nokia | Second Nature

Liked it. The set is really impressive! But later, was thinking - what's second nature about Nokia mobile phones? Is second nature a strong proposition for the brand? Is having it second nature or using it second nature or both? How do you attribute a 'habit', a behavioural pattern and an individual/internally driven one at that, to a possession? Do you then own the Nokia phone because simply it's something you don't have to think about? And if it's really something you don't have to think about, why bother with choice?

Theo Jansen - Kinetic Sculptor

Some pictures...

To market to market!

Love this shot...'Human Chair' taken at the barber shop.

Continued experiment with digital portrait shots (macro mode, lens zoomed out all the way + flash)... 1 in 10 turns out well. Think I really need a new camera or attend Digital Photography 101.

The previous Saturday I think... at the botanic gardens... reaching out for the 'Bigbubbles'

Off to his 1st violin lesson, with the violin strapped to his back. I will have to go for this Saturday's class without him... can't have him spreading his germs. He's doing coping very well with his ulcers though and still eating.

This was on Monday. Made some soba noodles with miniature 'Green Eggs' & Ham. He ate the entire plate of 'green eggs' up. I beat up a couple of eggs and cooked them a spoon at a time, adding a couple of Japanese soy beans on top of each one to make them look like eggs with green yolks. He loved them!

HFMD

It's confirmed. Boy caught HFMD. Right now, he's thundering around the house, which drives everyone up the wall. He has strapped a 'jet engine' (an IKEA stool) to his behind and so is going round the house screaming "fire! faster!! faster!!!" Much rather he continue this crazy run than lying in bed.

Btw, I'm done with the detox.

Day 3

Yup, am still at it. Now really sick of the sryup. Have been using limes... will use lemons today for variety. Did buy mee pok yesterday but it was for the boy who ate only like 1/10th of it. What a waste! But no, I didn't touch it.

After dinner, we brought him also around the estate for a walk with the lantern he received from Hannah as well as the lantern he made in school. There were also a couple of boys and one came along to show off his gun to him and he ran away from them in a hurry, back to us and announced, " They have guns leh!" So I told him something stupid... " Tell them you have a lantern and that your lantern has a fire!" God, this only works in Singapore where there are laws against firearms but if it's somewhere else in the world, then he jolly well did the right thing. RUN!!!!

Anyway, spent the morning working from home because the boy wasn't allowed into the school. He had a tiny ulcer on his right inner cheek. There was a case of HFMD in his class last week so they are on high alert. Hopefully, it's not. We are monitoring.

Still Day 2!!!

Wondering what would happen if I ate a nougat that a colleague bought from France? Am a bit sick of the maple syrup now...

Want COFFEE and MEE POK!!!

Detox Day 2

The stomach did howl like a wolf at full moon occasionally. But all you need to do is quickly make yourself another cup of maple syrup lemonade with a dash of pepper and it will stop. Strange, this is the longest time I have gone without solid food in a long long long long long time... maybe since I could eat solid food?

And oh, I have a headache... the type I get when I don't drink my 'kopi-si-kow-kosong' (thick coffee with evaporated milk no sugar) in the morning. Come to think of it, I normally have at least 3 servings of caffeine a day. One in the morning and 2 in the afternoons and more if I'm stuck in meetings that serves free flow of coffee or tea. Other than that, I'm feeling quite awake and have enough energy still to move around.

This morning, I watched the young one eat a whole bun - he picked the one with hotdog of course - at the bread shop near our place. That bread shop is his heaven ( not far from the truth since it is operated by a christian group) and he loves the freshly baked breads there lots. Anyway, we were there early and they hadn't made anyone coffee yet. I can watch him eat, no problems but the smell of good coffee would be another thing altogether.

Detox Day 1

This will be all I'm 'eating' the next 10 days:

Maple Syrup Lemonade:
250ml of distilled room temperature water mixed with
2 Tablespoons lemon or limejuice (approx. ½ lemon)
2 Tablespoons genuine maple syrup (Not maple flavored sugar syrup)
1/10 Teaspoon cayenne pepper (red pepper) or to taste
=> Up to 12 glasses a day

Have taken 4 glasses of it so far. Breakfast and lunch has gone by but I'm still feeling ok. Don't have the usual post-lunch drowsy feeling... but of course, I didn't have any lunch but I'm not feeling hungry either which, is good. The cayenne pepper is giving the stomach a nice warm feeling.

Right, time to make another glass>>>

Lesson #1 - Break it!

It's a group lesson. So 6 kids, 7 parents and a teacher squeezed into a small room for the session. Anyway, lesson #1 was all about getting the right-sized violin for the kid and teaching the parent how to stand and hold the violin correctly.

So the kid himself got bored. He walked around the tiny room, rather aimlessly, then asked repeatedly for his own instrument, played with the bow, swung it around a few times, leaned on it and ... broke it.

The other parents gasps while all I did was sigh and asked the teacher if he had a spare. He did. A spare new one and I had to pay $32.10 for it.

If I were not a parent, I would have thought me a bad parent for that kind of non-reaction.

My only excuse is that dragging him to class with my bag, his bag, my violin case, his violin case from home to town is too consuming and I don't have any more energy left for dispensing on discipline. And oh! Screaming at him in class or smacking him in the behind wouldn't help him learn the instrument will it?

Looking forward to next week.

Wondering what else he'd break.

*sigh*

http://stickgal.blogspot.com

Check it out... !

Passport ... FINALLY!!!

We brought you to the immigration house to collect your passport today. Yeah! Can pack you along for trips now.

A pleasant evening...

Very pleasant evening yesterday... Went home, fed the boy dinner while he played with his new trains on the table. He played with them too after dinner and when we went for a walk around the estate, he took them along. Anyway, he played with them the whole night and I even managed to read the papers and shower without him messing up my papers or banging his fists on the door demanding to know what I am doing inside the bathroom. Evening ended at midnight, with him holding on to his milk bottle with one hand and the trains with the other. Sweet.

Nothing much...

...going on in my life now >>> Wake up, go work, work, go home, sleep. Mondays thru to Fridays.

Wii

Finally we set it up.... or rather, YL did. The boy knocked out at 8+ and so we played, uninterrupted, for a few hours. It's been a while since we laughed so much!

Violin 1/16 + Hannah's Birthday Party

Bought a violin for the boy over the weekend from 'Synwin', located at Tanjong Katong Shopping Centre. The boy was pretty excited but ran away from the uncle when asked to grip the violin with his chin. Caught up with the boy outside the shop and hauled him back into the shop for measurement. The uncle decided that 1/16 was the right size. It's really tiny and apparently not the smallest. They have it in 1/32 and 1/64 too! So watch out!!! Because very soon, they'd make it so small you can start introducing it to them while they are still feotuses!!

Thank you Hannah for having us at your party! The Small One enjoyed himself loads and so did we! I thought he was looking at the cake in this picture but realised he wasn't when I took a closer look. He was looking at the caboose that someone had left on the table and not the cake!

Violin lessons

....thinking of starting the boy on violin lessons. Decision almost 90% made. Thing is, they require the parent to buy 2 violins! One for the kid and one for the parent. Wha!!.... Wonder if I can lug my cello there instead?.... Anyone has spare violins to loan for a term? Maybe it's time to take another trip to The Salvation Army store.

Quake

Our house shook this morning. The Big One came out of the room and asked, did you feel that? And then we did, it came in intervals of about 5-15 seconds. Our lamp was swaying at some point and we decided, maybe we should leave the house, go downstairs. Little One was eating some Chwee Chong Fun, so I thought, why not let him continue eating downstairs and took the plate with me... then opps, no bra! Went to the toilet to put one on. Big One forgot the key card and went back for it. By the time we got to open our front door, the shaking stopped. I can't believe how ill prepared we are for such incidents... and in times of crisis, we can be so silly about little things. I bet you if I was holidaying on the 26th of December 2004 on a beach and saw a big wave coming, I would have stood there watching.......

Rebranding

Walked into the office today to find 2 boxes of namecards, a packet of M&Ms Brand Milk Chocolate candies on our corporate colors, with our new logo on one side of it, a mousepad and a thermal mug. Not denying that it takes effort to do all this but I'd like to take a piss neverthelest ... the color of the logo on the namecard, chocolate, pad, mug don't match!

Also had this debate with the "HEAD". My point =>Brand names should never be used as nouns even when it is more grammatically correct to do so. Think escalator, rollerblade, photoshop etc etc... at least one can now be found in the dictionary and when it does, you loose the rights to it as a brand and/or trademark. Perhaps the company that I work for is leagues away from that but still???

Lastly, I burst out laughing at the "HEAD'S HEAD" presentation when I first saw our new ads. It's BAD. It's REALLY BAD.

Like I was telling CC during lunch at 'B Bakery' at Bussorah Street yesterday ....(Must digress. I had a Caesar's Salad there and it was really really good! Each leaf was evenly coated with dressing, with a generous spread of finely grated cheese & garlic, topped with my type of boiled egg - solid white with a soft and semi-runny yolk & a slice of freshly baked thick cut bread. $10) ....., my left brain is taxed to the max here in my job.... leaving my left atrophying from the lack of stimulus.

VOTE

Sis-in-law has sent in the picture of the 2 cousins. Click here to VOTE for them!

Reading

Last night, during our dinner at Foo's House, >> Here's a link to a review by ishootieatipost >> the boy picked up a menu and pretended to read it. When he was ready (the menu had no pictures), he said very confidently, "Mummy, I want to order this!" and pointed to this:

~Erdinger Weissbrau~

Well, I don't think so, little man! That's beer. Do you want beer? Not to be defeated, he pointed to the next item and said, "THIS?"

~Tiger Beer~

Fire Dragons

This was last night, at QQ's birthday party.

Portraits with digital cams

The digital camera we have is as old as the boy. Got tired of taking crappy shots so was looking for a solution when I found this site with some tips on how to take good portrait shots with digital cams. Will provide links to that site once I find it again... Meanwhile, here's what you are suppose to do:

(1) Switch to portrait mode... *duh* right? But mine apparently came in a symbol of a tulip flower and not a head. So I didn't know I had one. Thought it was the symbol for macro mode.

(2) Zoom lens to max! (apparently you do this to blur the background)

(3) Force the flash to go off at every shot.

Well, tried it. See effect above. Not too bad huh?

Anyone with better ideas?

Stainless Steel

YY, look, there's a crack in the wall
>> Where?
There!
>> nrg
You want to look at it closer?
>> Yes
*carries him up for a closer look*
YY, you think the roof will crash down on us?
>> No, because got stainless steel inside, very strong, won't crash down
???!?

I asked my father: Did you tell him that there is stainless steel inside the wall?
>> No.
I asked the Big One: Did you tell him that there is stainless steel inside the wall?
>> No.

I don't remember reading any books telling him that there is steel inside the walls either. Where on earth does he pick up such information?

**Baffled.

I wish I wish....

Spaced....

Mom: Does she clean your window?
Me: Windows don't need to clean every week... if she has time then she'd clean them.
Mom: Then she only need to come every other week!
Me: I think she did clean the window grills last week.
Mom: She is here how many hours?
Me: 4 hours.
Mom: Your house so small, need 4 hours arh?

*me walks away* This conversational topic with my Mom may turn out to be more exhausting than killing myself doing housework.

Space

My small flat is bursting. I need to double the size of the rooms, the kitchen, the living/dining room, the toilets and the store room. No need to double corridors, bay windows and washing area. That's not me by the way. Picture from here

SILOMAT RECALL

Was waiting for my coffee so flipped through the papers. Saw an article about Silomat. Freak! Small one has downed at least half a dozen bottles of this medication since he was born! Coffee not in system but my own heartbeat already irregular.

Silomat cough mixture taken off the shelves in Singapore
By Foo Siew Shyan, Channel NewsAsia
Posted: 04 September 2007 1949 hrs

SINGAPORE: The Silomat brand of cough mixture has been pulled off the shelves in Singapore. German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim said this is a voluntary recall and applies to all countries where the medication is available. It comes after recent findings suggest Silomat has a small likelihood of causing cardiac arrhythmia. The Health Sciences Authority (HSA) has been informed. Silomat treats irritable cough and it contains clobutinol hydrochloride, which according to a recent study, may pose a potential risk to affecting one's heart rhythm. But the company says the risk is very low. Silomat is available in syrup form and is a prescription drug in Singapore. Patients currently on the drug can seek a full refund before 30 November.

Teleconference

X attendee: We can't hear you well. There is a lot of echo!
Host: Ok. Can everyone please put their phone to mute?
*PAUSE*
Host: Now, can everyone hear me? Is this better?
*NO REPLY*
Host: Eehlo!! Can everyone hear me?

>>> I burst out laughing...but of course, because I was on mute, she couldn't hear it!!!

DUH!!!!

Wii

It's coming!!! to our place that is. Soon.

PT Help

Went home yesterday to a spanking clean house... Lovely!!! Thing was, my mother came along to stay over.

Mom: Eh, your house very clean
Me: Emm... Yes.
Mom: When was it cleaned?
Me: Emm.... today.
Mom: Did you ask somebody to help or you clean it yourself?
Me: It's clean hor?
Mom: So you clean it?
Me: Sometimes
Mom: So you ask somebody to clean it?
Me: No lar, I clean it sometimes.
Mom: So who cleaned it today??
In the absense of a mother-in-law, sometimes I feel like my own mother becomes one.
Me: Part-time helper.
Mom: How much does that cost?
Me: $50
Mom: $50 for...??
Me: $50 for 4 hour
Mom: How often?
Me: Once a week.
Mom: When does she come?
Me: Sunday.
Mom: I can clean for you this week. Tell her no need to come this sunday.
Me: Eh, it doesn't work like that.
Mom: Why not? Can!

*sigh*

Random

...conversations with the Big One this morning.

Me: Whey, if you gave money to a begger and he runs off to buy toto, will you be angry?
>>> No, because once you've given him the money, it is his to spend.
Me: Ok. Now, will you give the same person money again?
>>> HAHHAHAHAHA!!!!