Curious

Why do some people or guys, have to stand so close to the urinal while peeing?
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that some of the pee might.. backsplash??

Gross

The night we tried to save a Pangolin

We went out for dinner a day back which is.. 3rd of December. My sister was driving and well on the way back, while turning into Chestnut Avenue from Petir road, we saw a Camry which was stationary. No hazard lights though, but the occupants seemed to be staring at something on the right.

At first we didn't notice it and my sis proceeded to overtake by cutting to the oncoming lane and then suddenly she hit the brakes and started with the 'ooh-ing and aah-ing'.

Apparently there was a damsel pangolin in distress and there were 2 of them! I've never seen a pangolin before and I had no idea it was called and spelt pangolin till I called the walking animal planet -->> Ivan. Wahaha~

The car in front of us moved off (they were from the same neighbourhood anyway) and we also moved on after about 3 more minutes of staring in awe to see what's happening. From what I can see, the young pangolin was dead and the parent was trying to revive its dead child.

We went back home and we decided to head back to help the adult pangolin because we kind of assumed the young one was run over, and the adult pangolin was in danger of being run over. After arming ourselves with our camera, umbrella and an unused magazine =p we drove back.

On getting back the parent was nowhere to be found, it appeared on the other side of the road about a minute later and proceeded to crawl towards the ang pao chia. *sweat + pray "pls don't scratch the car, if not I'll use your scales to cover the scratch"*

Where were we? Haa.. the pangolin crawled underneath the car with the engine still running (silly sis no sense of fuel saving in her) and fortunately reappeared on the other side -_-" Again she(assume for sake of convenience) tried to revive the young pangolin by using her snout to push against her kid but the kid was stiff to the touch. Yeah I touched it before she appeared, just wanted to know if the creature was still alive or not.

We waited and observed in awe at this display of motherly/parental love and it was frankly a very touching moment. The mother then after sniffing with its snout, pressed down on her kid with her front paws. Then she turned and looked at us, almost as if begging us to save her child. Uh uh uh it was really sad, the mother's eyes were dilated.. well actually not but you can tell she was in distress and I felt much worse than her being unable to help. I could only watch, as she tried to revive her kid, all the time being unable to express her grief through facial expressions or anything.

It was certainly a very touching moment, and tears welled up in my eyes. Ok lah got a bit lah =p

The parent then left and went into the bushes then I proceeded to roll the carcass over onto an unused magazine, and at this point of time, princess J called me. (Saving me from performing the duty of relocating the dead carcass, my sis did it wahaha)

Since then, haven't seen the adult pangolin about the area but I wish him/her/it well. It was a real eye opener in many different ways.

Edit:
#1 There are more pics, equally blur but large sized images.
#2 By saving the Pangolin, we meant moving the dead carcass to another location so that at least the parent can grieve and mourn someplace else. Kinda lame but.. what else could I do?
#3 Hai~Ren you should have called me if your friend or whoever went to try to collect the carcass, Cashew Road is not the correct add. but nvm, I'll check again tomorrow morn.
#4 Upon flipping the dead pangolin, I don't think it was a roadkill. No blood, no visible broken or oddly shaped limbs, and no it wasn't flattened.

Why I like soccer

Most of the time, goals are created from 'nothing.' Teamwork, vision, timing, opportunism, practice. Perhaps these are all attributes we can use in real life. Hey I'm starting to sound like CoI! =P

A few attributes can be found in this short clip.
1. Opportunism
Will you sit back and enjoy a 3 goal lead or go on to try for something spectacular and out of the blue? Is there that predatory instinct inside of you?

2. Timing
When do you make your move? When is the right time to call for checkmate and get in the finishing move? Are you willing to risk getting yourself into a (offside) trap?

3. Practice
How could Xavi and Ronaldinho have known and predicted each other's movements such that the goal was successful? No verbal communications or physical gestures. Just pure body language.

Ahh, the beauty of soccer. The game of life.

Edit: youtube.com is down ATM so nothing I can do about it.

Due to my limited knowledge on HTML alignment..

I have to create a new post to describe the previous one. WTF! Here goes..

***

Today I will photo blog! Get ready to be bored to tears!

This first pic is obviously that of a dog. That has come to my place to seek refuge.
Its a real long story, basically owner A found it and one day after 2 months of happily staying at A's house, it barked non stop for 1 night. Perhaps he could see those stuff, lol. Neighbour complains and its now at owner B's place. Owner B is not even a Singaporean (neither is A) and stays at a rented condominium. Landlord doesn't like it so here it came.

I believe its a Yorkshire terrier but from the bark its more of a Yorkshire terror. Muahaha not funny.. :/

Some quick facts, his bark is rather fierce, his name is 'Ah boy', he hasn't poo-ed or pee-ed in our house which is a good thing but he barks to get us to take him outside for a pee/poo. I've picked up his shit twice already in 2 days (NB..)
He obeys commands in English (subject to ah boy's level of hype) such as 'sit' and 'stay' commands. Highly attention seeking and whines non stop (hence the nickname Mr Whiner/ Whiney) and failing to respond to his whining leads to loud, ferocious and deafening barks. (KNN, KPKB)


2nd and 3rd pics and just what I spent the past 2 days with, detailing the car. The bonnet, roof and boot isn't really that well detailed but these flat, vertical surfaces are usually much more attractive.

Process was simply
1. Rinse
2. Shampoo
3. Rinse
4. Claybar
5. Rinse/dry
6. Autoglym SRP(horizontal surfaces only)
7. Fusso99 12months sealant (horizontal less rooftop due to time and light constraints)
8. FK1 #425 quick detailer. (produced a very good shine with anti static effects/ increased slickness to the touch)

When I get my machine, I'll finally get rid of the stupid uneven issue with the sealant! Then its time to whack my arsenal! Whoo!!

Photo blog!

Long time no blog :/

Hehe lazy me, blogging should have been a fun and personal thing but now its becoming more and more like an obligation.

Been to Bangkok and back, its good to be alive wahaha! Fearful cab drivers (bonkers + drug addict drivers to spell it short)

Went for dinner and drinks today at Brewerkz.
Long story short, it was expensive and expensive. Haha but still can afford la at this point of time though I wouldn't want to visit it on a weekly, monthly or even yearly basis. The different selection on beers was interesting though!

Its been a long time since ang pao chia has been washed. She needs a makeover soon. I was thinking, if I have money = I am working = I can invest in tools to do up the car.
But if I am working = I don't have time = I no time to do up car.

Where do you draw the fine line? Where do you find the balance?

Hmmm although my English at this point is a bit muddled, but I hope you get my point.
Life is confusing, sleep is... comforting (quote of the month of October)

Peace out!

Just a small change

I've done away with the tagboard due to it malfunctioning. Perhaps too much bandwidth for them, can't keep up with the rising costs.

It was good while it lasted though, sayonara tagboard!

A good taxi driver and a really rotten one

I went to J's ex-colleagues gathering one Saturday back and from there (Sixth Ave), we took a cab to Jurong Point to catch a movie.

Flagged a Skoda Octavia cab and the driver whizzed off without much fuss. I was a little surprised by how briskly the cab accelerated from standstill, more like pinned to the backseat ya know?

I observed his driving and to be honest although he wasn't driving in a dangerous fashion, he was clocking on average 110kph on 90kph roads and 90kph on 70kph roads.
I also liked the way he slowed down when lanes were merging and he anticipated what another driver's behaviour was before he did any action. In the end the other driver was kind enough to let us pass so the cab driver went 'pedal to the metal' mode and we overtook with no fuss even on an upslope.

Just what a 2.5L diesel engine with a light pressure turbocharger (LPT) can do! Wee! I love Skoda cabs! For flag down its $2.80. Not that sure about the per km charge as it was too dark to read.




Warp to today, where I was driving around my neighbourhood waiting for the green arrow to make a right turn.

As the arrow came on, I depressed my clutch, shifted to gear 1 and 1 unclefucka taxi driver started honking me. Nvm, I curse and go thru the bend on 2nd, making sure I slow down as much as possible to make his blood boil even more.

Sure enough, he was behind me again on the next right! Yahoo! This time I turned right on 1st gear, which was like 15kph to annoy the shit out of his shithead.
He honked another 3 times and this time I seriously felt like getting out of the kawaii-no-berlingo and just ask him wtf he wants by honking.

Why do they honk so much? Is 1 or 2 seconds so damn important? If I were really carrying heavy or fragile goods then how? I really have to go that slowwwww can't you have more patience?

If not for the single crooked line and the long line of traffic waiting behind I woulda gotten out of my vehicle after I jam my brakes and stand in front of his cab. Perhaps sit on his bonnet and see what he wanna do.

Driving in Singapore needs some big improvements. Not so much about the illegal mods, the roads or anything. It has to do with the drivers' mindsets, these fuckanathans have to understand that the horn is used only in emergencies, not for slow van waiting to make a right turn!

Fucktards, they probably won't understand, I'll just trace them down and probably become some sort of vigilante myself :x

Singapore Idol finals!

Heard that Singapore Idol has ended and the results have been announced.

Running

Running is fun and challenging. Its good to have resumed running after a brief hiatus, and seems like our group is getting bigger and bigger now.

Yesterday we ran at ECP again, this time we took a different route and didn't run towards Bedok Jetty. We ran towards Fort Road and the coniferous trees (I think) were kind of a welcome relief compared to the numerous tents at 'Malay Village' if you know what I mean.

Having no serious runs in 2 weeks had its toll on me. By the 3.5km mark my abdominals were really feeling the strain, had to stop and pause for a breather but by then all momentum was lost =(

Won't be joining the Standard Chartered marathon or half marathon in any case due to lack in finances. I could but I don't want to spend that kind of $ anyway. Have a lot of other 'poisons' to invest on x_x

How much is too much?

If you had to wash a car and the car gets dirty every week, would you

1. Wash until its 100% clean, noting that the last 20% requires extra hard work and effort
2. Wash until 80% and live with the un-noticeable 20% difference.

My dad is number 1.

I was number 1.

Note: this is an analogy, not actual car washing!!!

DLink router

Recently my wireless router from Dlink (DI724P+) started giving me slower and slower connection speeds. So under constant bugging from my sibling and being a tad irritated with that piece of crap, I called Dlink.

The first lady who took my call gave me some simple instructions but because I'm not a noob I knew it wasn't going to work so I just had to perform basic troubleshooting processes which I had done a gazillion times =/

Then 2nd lady who took my call seemed to be multitasking tremendously because she had like 2 seconds delay when replying my questions. Ultimately after many many steps of troubleshooting I was still unable to rectify the problem and was getting very perturbed >_<

Then I sent her the file and she said she would simulate my situation, using their own DI724P+ router in their service center to see if they have any problem. Well that's the most stupid suggestion I've ever heard. Was she suggesting that my attachment file (my resume ~400kb) is causing the slow speeds/unable to email as attachment?!?!!

After another delay of 2 hours I called them and told them I was going down. Went to their Jurong svc ctr and the guy checked my router. After 5 mins he came out and told me 'Your router is obsolete and we will have to replace it with a new model'

Whooo!!! So now I'm with a DI524UP which is exactly the same as my old router, a little smaller and with a USB port for USB network printer connection. DLink's lifetime warranty.. I like... =D

New Balance Real Run results!!!!

Haha I was thinking of doing the mean and median thing but looking at the position of the scrollbar, mine is wayyyy down.

MO3567 SINGAPORE MEN'S OPEN 00:29:52 00:52:29 01:12:44 01:28:07

There are 3 other timings and those refer to the timing I took to cross the 1st, 2nd and 3rd checkpoints.

Looking at the timings, the fastest guy can run twice and still have to wait for me to complete the race.. his timing was 34:41.. wtf!

Hope to improve myself I'll go for 01:15 next time!

Rollerblading

Blading is something that I've been doing for a long time. I got my first pair of blades courtesy of my cousin when I was in Primary 5. That's 1993, 13 years ago. It wasn't just any pair of blades, it was frickin' Rollerblades! Woo! Brand new! I think it was bought at Parkway Parade in some big departmental store. There was a TV showing an ang mor 'cai' doing the slalom backwards and I was like WOW (slalom involves criss crossing several cones in a straight line)

Went home and tried blading around the void deck. After 3 rounds I pretty much got the hang of it. I remember it was about 9 or 10pm at night and we kinda attracted curious stares from passing people! Haha!

Well it took about 5 or 6 years for my first big fall. I was practising turns and my right foot which was leading the left turn, went over a green algae patch on the concrete floor and down I went, hard on my right hip. I struggled to smile sheepishly as a family who had just alighted from their car with badminton rackets asked if I was ok. Well, at that point of time I was wondering if my hip bone was gone and did I have a fracture or something because the pain was.. ahhhhhh super duper incredibly intense. Heng I was alright.

In Nan Hua, after managing to 'poison' Xinyan to learn how to blade, we started doing more dangerous stuff like jumping off a flight of stairs, going down staircases(backwards) and doing a lot of sliding/braking. I remember a particular accident where XY with his old blades (c/w pathetic plastic wheels with a low rubber content), he attempted to do a fast turn which became a hockey brake and he couldn't control it and he ended up sliding on his thigh for like 5 metres. LOL

His thigh skin + some of the butt skin was injured/abrased and it sure wasn't a pretty sight. Think average knee scrape, the amount of plasma + pus and multiply all of it by 10. The pain... >_<

Along the way he got more and more pairs of blades, Oxygens, california pro and God knows what else before he got his Majestics.

He dumped the Oxygens at my place and trashed the Cali-pros. I bought my Roces Chapter 322 together with his Majestics and after that I was kinda disappointed. With the more rigid, heavier and uncomfortable boot, I couldn't slide as well and my feet got tired faster. Although I could try new stunts like grinding railings (never tried though)

Until now with my new blades I still don't think its as good as my first pair of blades. Somehow the camber angle is too rigid for my liking =(

For those who dunno what is sliding, when I finally get used to my blades, I'll show you what's a slide! You know like Takumi in Initial D? Well this is the closest thing to it if you can't afford a car =D

My traceroute to PC's IP address

:( No idea wtf is going on and what this means but I HATE MY INGTERNET CONNECTION!

Of parabens and breast cancer

Reading about a friend's blog post about this, I decided to do some research.

As fitting of a BSc (Physics) holder, wikipedia came to mind (lol)

Parabens are a group of chemicals widely used as preservatives in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. One report, now universally discredited by scientists, showed parabens present in breast cancer tissue samples. This study was driven by the belief that parabens in underarm deodorants migrated into the breast tissue, despite the fact that less than 1% of all underarm products contain parabens (they rarely require any preservative due to the nature of these products). No causal link with cancer has ever been proven and so far there is no scientific evidence to support any link with any form of cancer . Parabens were claimed to have been found in 20 samples of breast tumors, see Parabens in breast tumors from the Journal of Applied Toxicology Jan-Feb 2004. It is by no means certain that the parabens were actually present in the tumour tissue as similar concentrations were detected in the blank control samples. The presence of parabens in the blank samples was attributed to "contamination", so it is possible that the parabens detected in the tissue samples were also due to contamination.

Complete article here

Basically, paraben can be adsorped not absorbed. Surface absorption = adsorption if I remember my A level chemistry correctly. Maybe Beng or even Henry can clarify.

Looking at the chemical structure it is basically
1. A benzene ring,
2. An ester group (sweet smelling compound common in perfumes) R-O-C=O where R determines the prefix. If R is CH3 then it will be methylparaben as seen on Gatsby facial washes.
3. On the 4th carbon just a plain looking -OH (essentially, the most fundamental alcohol group, one oxygen & 1 hydrogen atom)

Myth busted!

I did it!

Yeah, completed the New Balance Real Run 10km which comprised about 5km of road, 1.6km of sandy beach and 2.4km of 'trail'.

At the beginning I ran with my sister and well it was quite a slow pace then after the slopes and hills, just before the beach, we (PC and me) decided to run ahead and wow we didn't stop at the beach we ran all the way until the trail started. Frankly I was quite surprised that I could take on the sand portion without pausing~

After that I ran ahead and it was smooth going from then on till the finish line. I have no idea what was my timing but I am guessing that it was about 1hr 30mins.

Not bad for someone who simply buey zhao~

Good job guys! Hope more peeps will join us in your weekly Sunday run/jog/blade/swim/kayak!

Finance noob

Uh uh uh I'm really a finance noob. Luckily there's wikipedia to make things simple.

Learnt quite some stuff today, its good being paid to surf work :X Nope I didn't say that!

Movie Review!

Oh yeah this is my first movie review so yeah hope I do a good job!

Movie: Too fast too furious: Tokyo Drift

Acting: What acting? Ok lah, the main baddie did a good job of doing that hyperventilating cum quivering/angry thingy. Not bad. A few cameos by Keichii Tsuchiya (The real drift king in real life) and Vin diesel.

Storyline: American boy ricer moves to Tokyo cos he got busted in USA. Somehow gains the trust of a local ricer and gains access to a red Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. And so the drifting begins..

Cars: Ahhhhh really tasteful bodykits and paintwork. Nothing in the local scene can match the artistry in the vinyls. Quite sad really.

Main stars: The evolution, Fairlady 350Z and a couple of other RX-8s and Silvias. Nope, nothing human here.

Soundtrack: Well a couple of tunes were from Need For Speed: Most Wanted. But other than that, WHY NO EUROBEAT??!?!?!! Haha!

Would I recommend it: Only for the car fanatics, drifting performance was really good, nothing like I've seen at the movies so far.

Saving grace: Infinitely better than Initial D. If you thought Initial D sucked, the drifts in this movie, the cars, the soundtrack reinforces the argument. If you thought Initial D was great, well.. why are you still reading this? =D

Ok end of review!

Mind Control?

I can stare and stare at Rolex 30 second commercials all the way, its really a damned nice commercial. Well I'm not sure if you can find it on youtube but you can catch in on CNN if you have cable. There's the sailing version, the Phil Mickelson one, the LPGA version, and my favourite..

Roger Federer!!!! yay!!!!